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MEN AND THINGS 

BY HIRAM P. BELL 



BEING REMINISCENT, BIOGRAPHICAL 
AND HISTORICAL 



t 



PRESS OF THE 

jFootc Sc 2iDabics; Company 

ATLANTA: 1907 



AUG 5 30,'' i 






/^^^6 



COPYHIGHT 1907 
BY 

H. P. BELl, 






PREFACE. 



The author has lived in eventful times. He pre- 
sents to the public in this unpretentious volume, 
sketches — biographic, historic, reminiscent and analec 
tic of some of the men and things that have made them 
eventful. He does so in the ardent hope that they 
may be interesting to the present generation, and use- 
ful to future ones. 

Gumming, Ga., Hieam P. Bell. 

March 7, 1907. 



V^3 ^ 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Chapter I. 
Parentage and Birth of the x\iithor. 

Chapter II. 
Boyhood on the Farm. 

Chapter III. 
The Old Field School. 

Chapter IV. 
Education, Admission to the Bar and Marriage. 

Chapter V. 
The Bar of Georgia in 1850. 

Chapter YI. 
Changes in the Law and Its Procedure since 1850. 

Chapter VII. 
Secession and Reconstruction. 

Chapter VIII. 
Conditions after the War — Lawyers. 

Chapter IX. 
Amusing Incidents in Court. 

Chapter X. 
Secession. 

V. 



Chapter XI. 
In the War. 

Chapter XII. 
Second Confederate Congress. 

Chapter XIII. 
Personnel of the Members of the Second Congress. 

Chapter XIV. 
Lincohi and Davis. 

Chapter XV, 

Condition of the Southern People at the Close of the 
War. 

Chapter XVI. 
The Forty-third Congress and Party Leaders. 

Chapter XVII. 
The Forty-fifth Congress. 

Chapter XVIII. 
Disappointed Ambition. 

Chapter XIX. 
Social Problems. 

Chapter XX. 
Woman in War. 

Chapter XXI. 
Reminiscences of Some Famous Preachers. 

yi. 



Chapter XXII. 
Russo-Japanese War — President Roosevelt — Peace. 

Chapter XXIII. 
Legislatures of 1898-9, and 1900-1— In the House 
and in the Senate. 

Chapter XXIV. 
Life, Service and Character of James Edward Ogle- 
thorpe, the Founder of Georgia. 

Chapter XXV. 
The Religion of Christianity. 

Chapter XXVI. 
The Miracles Coincident with the Crucifixion. 

Chapter XXVII. 

St. Paul. 

Chapter XXVIII. 
Bishop A. G. Haygood. 

Chapter XXIX. 
The Causes of Crime and best Methods of Prevention. 

Chapter XXX. 
Literary Address delivered at Commencement of IMadi- 
son Female College. 

Chapter XXXI. 
Semi-Centennial Address. 

VII 



MEN AND THINGS 



CHAPTER I. 

Paeentage and Bieth of the Author. 

I was born in Jackson County, Ga., January 19th, 
1827. 

My father was of English extraction. He was a 
native of Guilford County, North Carolina. He was 
born July 22, 1794. His name was Joseph Scott 
Bell. His father, Francis Bell, removed from North 
Carolina, and settled in Jackson County, Ga., about 
the year 1800. He died in 1837, at the age of ninety- 
one years. He was a non-commissioned officer in the 
Continental army, and failed to be in the battle of Guil- 
ford Court House, by reason of being in command of 
a squad on detached service. My father was a man 
of iron constitution, physically, of high temper, strong 
impulse, resolute will and fearless courage. His edu- 
cation was limited, being such only as could be obtained 
by a short, irregular attendance upon inferior schools 
in the back-woods. He was by occupation, a farmer; 
never held a civil office, and was never a candidate for 
one. In politics he was a "State's Rights Whig." 
He was no trader. His communications were " yea, 
yea," and "nay, nay." He was the genius of manual 



2 MEN AND THINGS 

labor. I do not remember to have known him to spend 
an hour in idleness. 

Mj mother was Eachel Phinazee, a native Georgian, 
and of Irish descent. Like my father, she was brought 
up in a newly settled country, from which the Indians 
had but recently disappeared, and therefore, her edu- 
cation was meagre. With poor people, in a newly 
settled country, bread-winning was the watchword. She 
was born on the second day of jSTovember, 1794. Her 
mother, whose maiden name was Sarah Harris, died at 
the advanced age of ninety-one years, which age, my 
mother also attained. She was distinguished for plain, 
practical common sense, unremitting industry, devotion 
to duty and faith in God. Her spirit was quiet and 
gentle as a May zephyr, and even her reproof was in 
tones sweet as the "Spicy breezes of Araby the blest." 
Success did not elate, nor defeat depress her, but 
always and everywhere she maintained that self -poise 
which is the offspring of philosophy and Christianity. 

My father and mother married young, probably in 
1813 or 1814; and located in a cabin in the woods, on 
a small tract of land given to my father by his father. 
This was in the northeast portion of Jackson County, 
Ga., fifteen miles from any to\\Ti. Here they lived and 
toiled in agricultural avocation, until 1838, when, 
immediately after the removal of the Cherokees to the 
West, my father bought a few himdred acres of land in 
the woods, unmarked by human invasion, except an In- 
dian trail, leading from the Chattahoochee to the Eto- 
wah River, in the county of Forsyth, to which a part 
of his family removed in the early part of the year 



MEN AND THINGS 3 

1838. The remainder of the family joined this col- 
ony in the spring of 1840. Here he repeated the ex- 
perience of his early life, — the building of a home, 
and clearing a plantation in the woods, unscarred by 
the civilizing touch of the axe and ploughshare. Here 
he wrought, until he "crossed over the river, to rest 
under the shade of the trees." 

The family of my father and mother consisted of 
six sons and six daughters, all of whom lived to attain 
majority, and a majority of whom passed the allotted 
threescore and ten years. The senior son, Joseph T., 
died at the age of twenty-two years. His death left a 
scar in my mother's heart that never healed. 

My parents were both deeply religious. They united 
with the Methodist Church shortly after their marriage. 
My earliest remembrance is associated with the visits 
of ministers of the Gospel at our home, which was 
always open to them; and with the regular and syste- 
matic family worship. Such was their admiration for 
them, that they gave to each of their six sons, the name 
of a favorite preacher. 

My father was an official of the church — either stew- 
ard, class-leader, or trustee — practically all his church 
life. He was a man of extraordinary power in 
prayer. I have heard him often, at the family altar, 
pray with an earnestness and power and pathos, that 
seemed to me to make the foundation of the house 
tremble. Faithful, earnest, consistent, devoted Chris- 
tians, they lived together in harmony, peace and love, 
for more than sixty years, until all of their children 



4 MEH AND THINGS 

became grown, and married; and passed away without 
a cloud upon their spiritual horizon. 

On a calm, moonlight night in May, 1876, I wit- 
nessed my father's translation; with a face all radiant 
with the light of high communion, his last utterance 
was: "I leave the world in triumph," and gently ex- 
changed the cross for the crown. My mother survived 
him nine years. In September, 1885, at the home of 
her daughter, in Gumming, Ga., she closed a long life, 
with the stainless record of duty faithfully done, suf- 
ferings patiently borne, wrongs freely forgiven, and 
faith unfalteringly kept; and passed sweetly into the 
joys of the true life. I honor my parents for their 
character and their virtues; I bless their memory for 
their love and benefactions to me, in a thousand dif- 
ferent forms. 



CHAPTER II. 
Boyhood on the Faem. 

Those familiar with the history of Georgia during 
the first half of the nineteenth century, wiU remember 
that, at the close of the Revolutionary War, but a 
small part of the State, extending from the coast up 
the Savannah River, was occupied by white inhabitants ; 
the bulk of the territory, of what now constitutes the 
"Empire State of the South," was wild woods, occupied 
by hostile Indians and wild beasts. The absence of 
money and commerce, the continental war-debt, appre- 
hension "of failure in organizing successfully the new 
system of civil government, and the general demorali- 
zation resulting from the war, and the disorganized 
state of society generally, created the conditions to be 
met. These conditions developed the cardinal factors 
in achieving our present advanced type of civilization 
— enterprise and industry. Men and women went 
bravely to work to win bread and better their condi- 
tion. Controversies were adjusted, and treaties nego- 
tiated with the Indians, population poured in, new 
counties were formed, forests subdued, the wilderness 
reclaimed, churches and school-houses built — cheap 
and humble at first, it is true, but they were the seed 
of a harvest to be gathered later. 

That portion of Georgia lying west of the Chatta- 

S 



6 MEN AND THINGS 

hoochee River, known as Cherokee, Georgia, was the 
last portion of the State opened for settlement by the 
white people. It was occupied by an industrious, 
hardy class of people, with small means, very speedily. 
There were few slave-holders among them. The set- 
tlement of this section of the State took place at the 
time when President Jackson's removal of the deposits 
from the national bank, and specie circular burst the 
bubble of "flush times" sent the wild-cat banks, which 
had sprung up like Jonah's gourd, to grief; and left 
the people in debt without a circulating mediiun. 
Under these conditions — from 1840 to 1847 — and be- 
tween thirteen and twenty years of age, from sunrise 
until sunset, in winter and summer, I was engaged, 
without intermission, in work on the farm, which con- 
sisted in the winter season, in clearing and fencing 
the land, cutting, hauling logs, and erecting buildings. 
The county was heavily timbered, which was wasted 
with reckless prodigality. Each neighborhood had its 
circle of fifteen or twenty neighbors ; and every spring, 
as regular as the Ides of March, each neighbor had his 
regulation log-rolling; and in the fall, each within the 
circle had his corn-shucking. The house-raising was 
another institution of these primitive times. This was 
carried on either in the winter or in the summer, be- 
tween the crop-finishing and fodder-gathering season. 

These good people wrought hard and constantly, 
without money; and strikingly illustrated the truth 
that: "Man wants but little here below." They were 
plain and simple in their dress ; the cotton patch, flocks, 
cards, spinning-wheel, loom-room, and deft hands of 



MEN AND THINGS T 

good, virtuous house-wives, supplied the wardrobe. It 
was not long, however, until the farm, herd, orchard, 
garden and dairy, poured their treasures into the refec- 
tory in a variety and profusion that would satiate the 
appetite of Milo, or eclipse the board of LucuUus. 
They lived like princes on the proceeds of honest labor. 
In those days many communities had its little 
log church, built after a vigorous controversy over the 
place of its location, at which they held their Sunday- 
school and attended preaching, which was often on a 
week day, and to which the men would go from the field 
and the women from the loom — all in fatigue dress. 
They went to hear the Word of Life, and were generally 
thrilled by its power, and comforted by its solace. 
They lived in peace, all, or most of them, unconscious 
of what was transpiring in the great big world around 
them. If they were denied the blessing of different en- 
vironments and a more advanced state of civilization, 
the law of compensation exempted them from the an- 
noyance of an army of cooking-stove, sewing-machine, 
and insurance agents, and peddlers of rat poison and 
Chinese grips. It was not long, however, until the 
thin-nosed, irrepressible wooden-nutmeg Yankee clock- 
peddler put in his appearance. 

It is written: "In the sweat of thy face shall thou 
eat bread." My boyhood life on the farm is a striking 
illustration of the truth of this divine statement. An 
accident to an elder brother in the spring of 1834, sent 
me to the plow at the age of seven years. Other hands 
put on the gear and tied the hamestring, and a friendly 
stump or fence corner, after climbing, enabled me to 



8 MEN AND THINGS 

reach the back of the horse. In 1843, in the absence 
of my father, I bossed the farm. The weather was 
phenomenally cold in the winter and spring, forage 
was scarce, live-stock died — a magnificent comet 
stretched across the southwestern heavens. Miller's 
prediction of the approaching end of the world alarmed 
the superstitious. It snowed in March, and the ground 
was deeply frozen as late as the 5th of April; and 
vegetation indicated no sign of appearance at that date. 
A little later, an indiscreet neighbor put out fire on an 
adjoining farm in dry, windy weather, which caught 
the dead timber on my father's farm, set the fence on 
fire, and necessitated the tearing down and rebuild- 
ing of between two and three hundred panels, to save 
the rails. I felt something of the consternation of 
^ISTapoleon, when he discovered the blaze of Moscow. 
I did not retreat, but saved the fence. How much 
trouble, labor, expense and solicitude we could save 
others by a little caution at the proper time ! In the 
winter of 1842-43 my elder brother and myself made 
the rails and enclosed a forty-acre lot of land, thirty 
acres of which was mainly a chinquapin thicket. When 
the crop of 1843 was finished, my father returned home 
from a mining enterprise in which he and my elder 
brother had been engaged, and constructed a threshing- 
machine, the band of which my two brothers and my- 
self turned, in the month of August, until we threshed 
out the wheat crop of one hundred bushels, at the rate 
of five or six bushels per day. In the winter of 
1843-44, my elder brother having attained his major- 
ity, left home and entered school. My two younger 



MEN AND THINGS 9 

brothers and I devoted our time to the clearing of the 
thirty acres of chinquapin thicket, which consisted in 
cutting o£F the bushes near the ground with club or 
pole-axes. 

Early in the month of May, 1844, the brush was 
burned, the ground was laid off, without breaking, 
and planted in corn. After wheat harvest, on the 
twentieth of June, my brother Matthew and I com- 
menced to plow it for the first time. Father and a 
negro woman followed with the hoes. The rows were 
nearly a quarter of a mile in length. The water- 
sprouts were as thick, and very nearly as tall, as or- 
dinary wheat at maturity — so thick and tall that we 
frequently lost the row in running the furrow next to 
the corn. The corn having grown in the shade, was 
about eighteen inches high, and the stalk but little larger 
than a well-developed sedge-broom straw; so slender in- 
deed, that when the sprouts were taken from around 
it much of it fell do^^•n. We had been plowing, or 
trying to plow, for about three hours in this wilderness 
on an immensely hot day, when I discovered an im- 
mensely large rattlesnake making an effort to dis- 
engage itself from entanglement with the foot of my 
plow. I shall not attempt to describe my liorror, for 
the reason that there are some things beyond the at- 
tainment of human power. I killed the snake, re- 
ported at once the adventure to my father, and begged 
him to abandon the field, urging that it was tenptiug 
providence to take the risk of the snakes. But my 
father had more faith than T, and scarcely gave my 
importunate plea a respectful hearing. We ploughed 



10 MEN AND THINGS 

on for nearly a week; and passing each other near the 
centre of the field, we stopped and engaged in conver- 
sation. I noticed in a moment mv brother's face 
turned white as cotton. He had discovered a large 
rattlesnake lying nnder a bush in the row between us. 
We loosed our horses, despatched the rattler, and 
turned to hitch them, when I discovered, under another 
bush nearby, a companion snake of equal size, w^hich 
was also promptly despatched. After ten days of 
ploughing in new ground covered with a wilderness of 
bushes, permeated with roots and stumps, and in- 
habited by rattlesnakes — suffering all the agonies of 
mental crucifixion — we finished the job, with Nil as 
the result, so far as the crop yield was concerned. A 
few years ago, as I closed my brother's eyes in death — 
within an hour after I reached his bedside in Milledge- 
ville — these struggles, toils and associations of our boy- 
hood came trooping down the dusty aisles of memory, 
with a powder and pathos for which language has no 
expression. 

The year 1845 was eventful in most of the Gulf 
States, on account of the absence of rain, and the fail- 
ure of crops. Hundreds of families, especially from 
South Carolina and Georgia, sought homes in the West. 
Four weeks of the summer of this year is epochal in 
my history. I had, for that period, the benefit of my 
brother's instruction. The preceding year, he had the 
instruction of a first-class teacher, and was himself 
an accomplished grammarian. This month's instruc- 
tion from a competent teacher laid the foundation for 
what little I may have attained in the way of education. 



MEN AND THINGS 11 

In 1846 my father took a new departure in his farm- 
ing enterprise. He had tried cotton, which his boys 
had shivered with cold in picking during Christmas 
week and in January and which he had hauled with 
an ox-team to Madison, Ga., then the head of the Ga. 
K. E., and sold at two and one-half cents per pound. 
This departure consisted in substituting a tobacco for 
a cotton crop. He planted ten acres in tobacco plants. 
The land happened to be in the most favorable condi- 
tion to produce its largest yield of crab-grass. The 
season was unustially wet, the growth of the tobacco 
was retarded, that of the grass, not. After much toil, 
the crab-grass, late in the sununer, was subdued. If 
there is any one thing for which a farmer-boy ardently 
pants, it is a few wrecks of rest, after the crop is "laid- 
by," and the peach and watermelon season puts in an 
appearance. But just as this halycon heaven of 
boyish delight was reaished, the tobacco plants must be 
topped, and the worms and suckers removed. This 
process consists in pinching off the top bud, and suckers 
with the fingers; and knocking off the great, green, 
loathsome worms with a stick, and mashing them with 
the foot. The operator is bent forward in the broiling 
sunshine, besmeared with the gum and stench of this 
plant, and disgusted with the sight of the worms. This 
is anything but a delightful exercise. It was com- 
pleted, in this case, some days after the drying fodder 
had suffered for gathering. Then the tobacco-house 
was to be built and daubed, the plant to be cut, placed on 
sticks and cured, stripped from the stalk and bound 
into hands. What the crop yielded in money I do 



12 MEU A.ND THINGS 

not now remember. I am sure it was the only ex- 
periment my father ever made with tobacco. He went 
back to cotton. 

Having attended school — all told, only six or eight 
months in snatches of two or three weeks at a time — in 
the old field school, most of that time to very inferior 
teachers, even for this grade of school; and having at- 
tained the age of twenty years, without education, I 
proposed to my father to serve him another year if he 
would send me to school for one year; or, that if he 
would release me from the service, I would discharge 
him from the obligation to give me a year's schooling, 
as he had done for my older brother, and take the 
chances of educating myself. He generously accepted 
the latter proposition. It is due to the memory of my 
dear father to say that he had a high appreciation of 
his obligation to educate his children, and ardently 
desired to discharge that obligation. But having a 
large family to support, always necessarily in debt, 
settling in the woods remote from school* fitted to be 
entrusted with one's education, it was utterly impracti- 
cable for him, with these environments, to carry out 
his wishes in this respect. It is a matter of solace to 
me, that most of his children, somehow, secured a good 
English education. 

Before I close .this chapter, allow me to say that 
there is one phase of the life of the average country- 
brought-up boy, that it would do him great injustice 
to omit. It is about the time, in his history, when 
the first application of a dull razor is made to his upper 
lip, designed to elicit the appearance of an infantile 



MEN AND THINGS 13 

mustache, and he is, or thinks he is, desperately in love 
with a neighbor's pretty daughter. My observation 
convinces me that this event in a boy's life constitutes 
a rule of general, if not universal application. I was 
not an exception to the rule. On a bright Sunday 
morning, having blacked my shoes — that is, the top of 
the front portion of them — with a mixture of cold 
water and chimney soot — as much as I could induce 
them to mix — donned my best suit, saddled and 
mounted a small mule, something — but little larger, 
than a full grown Texas jack-rabbit — (it was a very 
small mule), and set out on the Don Quixotic adven- 
ture of calling to see the object of my supposed idolatry. 
Within a quarter of a mile from the house the road 
crossed a creek with rather precipitous banks. The 
mule, as it soon afterwards became apparent, was 
thirsty. As soon as it came within reach of the water, 
it very naturally but very suddenly and decidedly un- 
ceremoniously, put its mouth to the water, which left 
its body in an angle of something over forty-five de- 
grees. The result was, the rider was tumbled over 
the mule's head into the creek, followed by the saddle, 
which fell on him. This mishap was then esteemed a 
calamity. It is now regarded as the poetry of the 
ludicrous. It would present a picture that would 
shame the genius of Nast, whose artistic skill as a 
cartoonist broke the heart and caused the death of 
Horace Greely. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Old Field School. 

The old field school, like some other institutions 
of this country, has, in its peculiar way, served its day 
and generation, and by common consent has been rele- 
gated to memory and history. In these days of pub- 
lic school fads, higher educational pretentions, college 
and university base and foot-ball games, and punch- 
bowl banquets, reference is seldom made to an institu- 
tion which, though lowly in origin and humble in claim, 
has made possible all these institutions as well as our 
advanced state of civilization. When it is referred to 
it is usually with the sneer of derision or the smile of 
amusement. It seems that such a spirit of ingratitude 
is capable of repudiating the love of a mother, or re- 
proaching the misfortune of poverty. It met a condi- 
tion of society at a time and under circumstances which 
could not have been met without it. It kindled a light 
that makes the opening years of the twentieth century 
all radiant with the glow of intelligence. The "old 
field school" possessed three distinctive sides — the 
ludicrous, the sentimental and the useful. Its houses, 
furniture and comforts, as well as the extent of its 
curriculum and the qualifications of its teachers, com- 
pared with those of the present time, appear ludicrous 
in the extreme. 

14 



MEN AND THINGS 15 

The school-house was usually located in the corner 
of an old field cleared by the Indians, or in the woods, 
constructed of small round oak or large, split pine logs, 
notched down at the corners and covered with clap- 
boards. The orthodox dimensions were 24x16 feet. 
The larger part of one end was devoted to what is 
known as a "stick and dirt chimney." Economy in 
labor and money was promoted by dispensing with 
sleepers and floor, and substituting the ground therefor. 
The furniture consisted of a small, rough pine table 
and a superannuated chair in the rear of it. This was 
the throne of the intellectual sovereign. The seats for 
the pupils were made of oak or chestnut logs about six 
inches in diameter, split open in the center and pegs 
driven into auger holes from the round side of the half- 
log. These pegs were of a length that would prevent 
the feet of the urchins occupying the benches from 
reaching the dirt floor by a distance of from six to 
eight inches. To occupy such a seat for a long, hot 
summer day was a penance that ought to atone for a 
multitude of sins. The remaining article of furniture 
was the writing bench. This consisted of a rough plank 
nailed to the top of a frame, as nearly on a level as 
practicable, twelve inches wide and ten feet long, and 
a plank of similar dimensions joined to each of its 
edges, slightly inclining downwards. 

The aesthetic will perceive that this equipment, in 
the line of convenience and comfort, was neither ex- 
pensive nor elaborate. The curriculum was not exten- 
sive but it had the merit of being in harmony with its 
surroundings, and conflned, within the constitutional 



16 MEN AND THINGS 

limitation, to "the elements of an English education 
only." It embraced spelling, reading, writing and 
arithmetic The standard text-books were : The Ameri- 
can Spelling-book^ the American Preceptor and Da- 
worth's or Fowler s Arithmetic. A little later, as this 
class of educational institution advanced, the Colum- 
bian Orator and Weems' Life of Washington were 
added. 

The teachers, in the main, were men of advanced 
age, too lazy to work and too poor to live without it. 
Having appeared after the age of Raphael, Titian, 
Angelo and Reynolds, and passed away before the dis- 
covery of Daguerre, the world has lost the pleasure 
of looking upon their pictures and must rely only upon 
such faint and imperfect pen-pictures as memory alone 
can supply. 

I have in mind with some degree of distinctness, the 
image of four of them who are strikingly typical of the 
class. For fear of marring the pleasure of some filial 
descendants in tracing his heraldry, for the discovery of 
his ancestral escutcheon, I refrain from stating names. 
Indeed, the given or Christian name of the first one to 
whom I refer is forgotten. I only remember that his 
students, by common consent, substituted for it, what- 
ever it was, the name "Nipper," so that he was known 

only as Nipper A s. I do know, however, that 

he was a tall, ungainly, bald-headed, sour-tempered old 
man, with no magnetism and but little intelligence. He 
was not deficient in physical force, as two certain boys 
who engaged in an innocent game of "hard-knuckles" 
during study hours when he was supposed to be asleep, 



MEN AND THINGS 17 

after having visited, at the noon recess, a neighboring 
still-honse, discovered to their mortification and discom- 
fort. 

The next one, W , whose only possession was a 

homely wife and a bad "small boy," was an Irishman 
of exuberant cheerfulness. No conditions seemed to 
discourage or dishearten him. He secured his sup- 
port, principally, from his neighbors by borrowing such 
articles of food as were necessary to prevent actual 
starvation, under the pretext that "to his surprise, he 
had ascertained that the articles desired had just been 
exhausted at home," and with the munificence of a 
prince bestowing an "order" or conferring a proconsul- 
ship upon a grateful subject, he promised to return it 
with manner that simply defies description, except to 
say that it was done in a way of Irish shrewdness that 
made the lender feel that he was the beneficiary. This 
feeling was the only benefit he ever received for the 
loan. His theory of teaching seemed to consist, judg- 
ing from his practice, in the belief that light could be 
communicated to the mind by the application of force 
to the body. 

H , unlike W , was a man of some means. 

He had a wife, a very large family of children, five 
or six dogs and two rifleguns, the stocks of which were 

well worn by long use. Mr. K was a man of large 

frame, dark complexion, of slow motion and deliberate 
speech ; though of robust health he seemed to be averse 
to motion, and the act of breathing appeared to be irk- 
some to him. If the "law of the Lord" was not his 
delight the law of inertia was . His uncharitable 



18 MEN AND THINGS 

neighbors entertained the suspicion that he was afflicted 
with an attack of remediless laziness. Of the truth 
of this imputation, posterity must judge. I only state 
the facts in the case. 

F , the remaining member of this quartet of 

famous pedagogues, was a man of decidedly marked, if 
not unique, personality. His stature w^as low, his head 
large and of peculiar form, his lower limbs short and 
bent with a regularity that fitly represented the seg- 
ment of a circle, the convex side being outward; his 
feet inclined to the club variety; his walk w^as sort of 
hobbling and shuffling movement. The conception of 
a cross between a chimpanzee and a dwarf would pre- 
sent the nearest an ideal picture, of which his figure 
was susceptible. In bestowing her gifts, Nature had 
been parsimonious with him; some — and among them, 
beauty — had been entirely withheld. An officiating 
clergyman said at a vagrant's funeral, that "Whatever 
else might be said of the deceased, all would admit that 
he was a good whistler." So I can say of this dead 
pedagogue (and it is about all that could be said), he 
wrote a beautiful hand. 

These great men of the olden time were differen- 
tiated, mainly, if not solely, in their personality. They 
were all old men. They were about on an equality in 
scholarly attainments, perhaps T should say, in the 
absence of scholastic attainments. They all taught at 
the same place, used the same books, practiced like 
methods and quenched their thirst at the common "still- 
house." 

As the branches taught were few, the methods em- 



MEN AND THINGS 19 

ployed were simple. The lessons were studied vocally, 
not silently, and by far the largest portion of the study 
consisted in the hubbub of mingled voices in every va- 
riety of key. The full measure of vocal power was 
developed in preparing the "heart lesson" preceding 
the evening adjournment. With favorable atmospheric 
conditions the hum of this noise could be distinctly 
heard at the distance of a mile, and the peculiar 
shrieks of one boy's voice (Duncan Campbell's) could 
be easily distinguished at that distance. The useful 
art of writing was taught by commencing with a so- 
called "line of straight marks" across the top of a leaf 
of coarse, unruled paper. This, of course, was made 
by the teacher and called the "copy." The beginner, 
equipped with a goose-quill pen and the juices pressed 
from oak-balls (well known among the scholars as ink- 
balls) for ink, commenced the process of copying the 
marks. The second lesson was the mark, as in the 
first, curved at the bottom and traced upward. This 
mark, in the figurative language of the teacher, was 
called "pot hooks." The third copy was a line of "pot 
hooks" with the second line curved at .the top and 
brought down to evenness with the lower curve; then 
followed copies of capital letters of the alphabet, etc. 
It was a singular fact that the students almost inva- 
riably in making these curves, slightly twisted and pro- 
truded the tongue, and kept the tongue and eyes in a 
movement precisely corresponding to the motion of the 
pen. I never did understand, and do not now know, 
which was the dominant motor in this operation — these 
members or the pen. I had the privilege of securing 



20 MEN AND THINGS 

early instruction from each of the worthies here men- 
tioned, in an institution which I have endeavored to 
describe. Whatever mistakes in instructions or dis-" 
cipline they made I forget and forgive. For whatever 
of good they did me, I give them the thanks of a heart, 
which I trust is incapable of ingratitude. 

THE SENTIMENTAL SIDE OF THE OLD FIELD SCHOOL. 

"A land without sentiment is a land without liberty." 
The short resolution adopted by the Pilgrim fathers in 
the cabin of the "Mayflower" was the prophecy of our 
magnificent structure of democratic constitutional gov- 
ernment. They symbolized the religious faith of the 
United States as they stood on "Plymouth Rock." 

"And shook the depths of the forest gloom with 
hymns of lofty cheer." 

The old field school was our present civilization in 
embryo. It was the beginning of what now is. Pioneer 
settlers were always distinguished for their energy, 
industry, fearlessness and faith. This school was 
theirs. Indeed, it was the pioneer educational institu- 
tion of the North American wilderness. 

On a Monday morning, late in July or early in 
August, coming from all directions, in a circle within 
three miles around the school-house, from forty to fifty 
children of both sexes, ranging in age from five to 
twenty years, might be seen to meet at the school-house. 
They were simply and cheaply clad in such apparel as 
their good mothers could manufacture. They were all 
barefoot, except the few grown girls. They were all 



MEN AND TH ING8 21 

bronzed by the mingled force of hard labor and hot 
sunshine. The commissariat consisted of bacon, or 
steak, sandwiched between slices of corn-bread, or bis- 
cuit, neatly wrapped in a clean napkin and placed in a 
small tin bucket, or basket, and a black quart bottle — 
which had seen other service — filled wdth butter-milk 
and closed with a corn-cob stopper. The dessert — 
peaches and apples — were carried in the boys pockets. 
There was no difficulty in arranging classes. All that 
w-as necessary was to point out and assign as lessons, 
the alphabet, the lesson in spelling and the multiplica- 
tion table. A few lessons being recited, the noon re- 
cess reached and lunch over, they assembled on the play- 
ground, and speedily renew^ed old and formed new 
acquaintances. They cared little for the ceremonious 
etiquette of courts, or the military discipline of camps. 
These children on the play-ground presented a scene 
on which idle angels would delight to look for. 

"They also serve, who only stand and wait." 
The games they played, if lowly and rustic, were 
healthful and harmless. Their section of the country, 
at least, had not been favored with the entertainment 
of the cock-pit, the bull-fight, nor foot-ball. ISTor had 
a powerful daily press then delighted the public with 
columns of detailed description of the bloody "rounds" 
of Jeffries and Fitzsimmons. To preserve the facts 
of history, a list of them is given; they were: Base, 
tag, cat, marbles, bull-pen, town-ball, shinny, roly-hole 
and mumble-peg. Both sexes joined in the first two 
named, therefore base and tag had precedence in popu- 
larity. I always thought, for the reason, that the exe- 



22 MEN AND THINGS 

cution involved the thrill of touch. These children had 
a common experience in labor and poverty; had 
learned self-denial and self-sacrifice; had waded in the 
branch and been charmed by the ripple of its tiny water- 
falls; had gathered autumnal fruitage in the tangled 
wildwood; had breathed alike the fragrance of the rose 
and honeysuckle; had listened in ecstacy to the chorus 
of the birds and gazed in wonder upon the stars that 
deck the diadem of night. They had communed with 
Nature and reveled in its charms until their life had 
become an unwritten idyl. They had likewise realized 
in their short, young lives all the emotions of hope and 
fear, of success and defeat, trial and triumph, and grati- 
fication and disappointment. 

As they stood on the play-ground about to advance 
a step in the social and intellectual world, each felt the 
consciousness of a force within that was not understood, 
and that could neither be defined nor described, still 
it throbbed in the brain, pulsated in heart-beats and 
gurgled through the veins. It was present in their 
ambitions, aspirations, admirations, envyings, rivalries, 
likes and dislikes. What was this force? Was it the 
struggling of the mind for higher attainments in knowl- 
edge, the panting of the restless spirit for the solace of 
peace, or the thirst of the soul, clamoring for one full 
draught of immortality? N'o body can tell. 'No one 
knows. Whatever it was, it was the power, dying 

"Ion caught from Clemanthe's eye" 
that assured him of a reunion of love, 

"Beyond the sunset's radiant glow." 



MEN AND THINGS 23 

If they never heard the name of the poet, nor read 
the couplet, they all felt the sentiment that 
"Kind words were more than coronets, 
And simple faith, than Norman blood." 

It was very soon discovered that in playing the 
game of base some boys were very easily caught by 
certain, particular girls. It was further observed that 
the same boys and girls, in going home in the evening, 
would linger at the parting of their ways and play, or 
pretend to play, "tag." They parted with the com- 
pact, that whichever one reached the place first on the 
succeeding morning, in returning to school, would make 
a cross-mark or drop the twig of a green bush in a 
particular place in the road. This sign always accel- 
erated the movements of the party of the second part. 
I never heard of any complaint of violating the stipu- 
lations of this treaty. It may be, after all, that these 
trivial, simple little things shed light on the solution 
of this great problem that has baffled the learning and 
exploded the theories of psychologists. It was a little 
thing to dip seven times in "Jordan" but it healed a 
leper. 

In long after-years and from far-away places, many 
a heart has sent memory back to the old play-ground, 
and silently sighed for 

"The touch of a vanished hand," 
and the sparkle of an eye forever closed. 

The Useful Side of the Old Field School. 

It must be remembered that the school under con- 
sideration, was the educational initiative, the first 



24 MEN AND THINGS 

grade or primary species of the genus old field school. 
This grade did not, and necessarily, could not exist 
long. It was subject to the great law of gradation, 
progress and development, which seems to have dom- 
inated the process of creation, as well as the disclosures 
of revelation. As the good people improved their con- 
ditions, increased their means and enlarged their views, 
they built better houses, used superior books and em- 
ployed more capable teachers. Occasionally, in a more 
wealthy neighborhood, an academy would spring up, 
and as new counties were formed the law provided for 
the establishment of an academy at the county-seat. 
In the meantime the University was struggling up to 
the guerdon of triumph; later the gi-eat churches built 
colleges for both sexes; finally public sentiment crys- 
talized into constitutional provision for the public 
school system. 

The first grade of the old field school, as described 
in these pages, is the granite bed-rock upon which this 
superb superstructure rests. It was the small seed 
from which this luxuriant harvest within the period of 
a century was gathered. The children of this school, 
belonging to the same grade of society, identified in 
common environments, and the sympathies which result 
from early association (at least many of them), mar- 
ried and organized homes in the quiet country, in 
which peace, gentleness, aft'ection and contentment ex- 
emplified the only remnant of Eden, unblasted by the 
fall. They became the parents, and grandparents, of 
a race of men and women that subdued the wilderness, 
beautified it with gardens, orchards, farms, towns and 



MEN AND TH INQS 25 

cities, and crowned it with temples of worship and 
learning, and hospitals and asylums. A race of chiv- 
alrous patriots, who in 1812, dispersed the boasted navy 
of England, sent back to her, from ISTew Orleans, the 
pickled corpse of Packenham; scaled the rocky heights 
of Cherubusco, Chepultepec, Milino del Key ; floated the 
American flag from the dome of the capitol of the 
Aztecs, and spangled the "milky way" of national glory 
with a gorgeous jewelry of stars. 

The people provided the old field school for them- 
selves. It was the best they could do, and they deserve 
the grateful thanks of all the coming ages for what 
they did. 

There were two other potent factors co-operating 
with the old field school in laying the foundation for 
these achievements. They were the Decalogue and the 
Sermon on the Mount. Side by side with the school 
appeared the irrepressible Methodist circuit rider, with 
his much-used and well-worn Bible, hymn-book and 
"Discipline," preaching every day in the week, at the 
little log church or school-house, and at night fre- 
quently at some house of a brother in the neighborhood. 
At the same time the Baptists appeared, preaching on 
Saturday and Sunday. The preaching of that day 
dealt with the doctrines of depravity, repentance, faith, 
regeneration and obedience, as taught in the Bible, with 
occasional reference, by the Baptist brethren, to some 
of the dogmas of the ironclad theology of Geneva, such 
as election and reprobation, final perseverance, mode of 
baptism, etc. These combined forces formed the char- 
acter of a good people and directed the course and 



26 MEN AND THINGS 

shaped the destiny of a great nation. The power of 
many of these men finds fit expression in Wirt's de- 
scription of the blind preacher : "They spoke as if their 
lips had been touched with a live coal from off the 
Altar." They accepted the Mosaic cosmogony. They 
taught that "the Son of Man came to seek and to save 
that which was lost," and that He brought "life and im- 
mortality to light." They indulged in no speculations 
on the "glacial" and tertiary periods, nor did they waste 
any time in searching for "protoplasm," nor tracing 
their paternity, through the processes of "evolution," to 
a monkey progenitor. 

Schools, academies, colleges and universities can not 
educate. They can only supply the means to aid and 
enable people to educate themselves. Education, in its 
last analysis, is a personal work, facilitated by the aid 
of helpful agencies, or retarded, of course, by their 
absence. To become thoroughly educated, compara- 
tively, requires a life-long, unremitting, systematic pro- 
cess of observation, reading and thinking; and this can 
only be done by the student himself. The great and 
learned Newton said that he "had only picked up a 
few shells on the shore, while the great ocean of knowl- 
edge lay, unsailed, beyond him." The old field school 
did its work, and did it well. Like the "Mother of 
the Gracchi," she can present George Washington, Ben- 
jamin Franklin, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay and 
Abraham Lincoln, as her jewels, and proudly challenge 
Harvard or Yale, Oxford or Cambridge, Leipsic or 
Heidleberg, or all of them combined, to duplicate this 
quintet of American immortals. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Education, Admission to the Bar, and Maekiage. 

At the age of twenty years, with an attendance, al- 
together, at school, of six months — four at the old field 
of the first grade, and two of the second grade. I left 
home with the blessing of my parents, and entered on 
the battle of life. My wardrobe was such as my dear, 
good mother could provide. I had a purpose (this 
was all), owned no property, did not have one cent of 
money; bought books and secured board and tuition on 
credit; and entered the academy at Gumming, in Feb- 
ruary, 1847. It should be stated that my school in- 
struction had been supplemented by studying during 
the long winter nights, with my brothers and sisters. 
We had many and most interesting "spelling-bees," and 
recitals, in English grammar and geography. I made 
it a point to read every book upon which I could put 
my hands; and in 1845, I had the advantage of very 
superior instruction from my brother, for five weeks, 
who taught near Sheltonville, Ga., the odor of whose 
lessons has lingered for threescore years, in the com- 
munity, "like the fragrance of roses that have once 
been distilled." The principal of the Academy, Joseph 
K. Valentine, was a professional teacher, in middle 
life; a fine scholar and a gentleman. He was so thor- 
ough in the Greek and Latin languages, that he read 

27 



28 MEN AND THINGS 

the text-books in the course as promptly and with as 
much facility, as he read English. The students, in 
constant attendance, numbered about one hundred, half 
of whom, approximately, were grown. It was a mixed 
school. In arranging the classes, it was my good for- 
tune to be assigned to a class of five grown girls, in three 
or four studies. In preparing the lessons in these 
studies, we occupied seats together. Being further ad- 
vanced, especially in English grammar, than any of 
them, I was helpful to them in that study. I had 
parsed most of Milton's "Paradise Lost," and when sur- 
rounded by this coterie of beautiful girls, I felt as if I 
was in "paradise found." One of the most interesting 
and valuable lessons, was the ''Heart" spelling lesson. 
The class was a large one, more than twenty, of the 
grown students. The book used was "Town's Speller 
and definer," a book of something over 300 pages, con- 
taining the words in most common use, with accurate 
definitions. The first thing after the noon recess was 
this lesson, which had been carefully studied during 
the recess. The class stood in a line; the teacher called 
the word, and the class spelled and defined it. At the 
formation of the class, each student took his place at 
the nearest point at which he reached it; before the 
end of the second lesson the five girls and myself were 
the first six in the class, counting from the head — four 
of them above and one below me. We stayed there 
for one year — not one of the six missed the spelling or 
defining of a word in the book for that period. These 
girls were : Virginia M. Lester, Martha Erwin, Joseph- 
ine Strickland, Virginia Sims, and Mary Sims. They 



MEN AND THINGS 29 

all had been trained by practical, sensible, good parents ; 
Were all of nearly the same age and size, were social 
chums, ardent personal friends, free from malignity 
and envy, bright as stars, and animated with ambition 
and rivalry to excel each other. A year's class and 
social association with them failed to discover the slight- 
est defect or weakness in the character of any one of 
them. The respect, confidence and friendship of all 
of them, and the priceless love of one of them, have 
been the blessing and solace of my life. And now, the 
precious memory of them comes to my spirit, sweet and 
sad, as the tremulous echoes of a nightingale's dying 
song. 

Within three months from the day I entered that 
class, Virginia M. Lester and myself were engaged to 
be married so soon as I finished my (education, and was 
admitted to the bar. As unwise and reckless as this 
engagement may have then seemed, time and trial vin- 
dicated its wisdom. Her bright smile, like light on 
"Memnon's lyre," set my heart to throbbing with the 
music of love, that was as resistless as a decree of des- 
tiny. She was in the bloom of young womanhood. 
The ease and grace of her pose, the simple elegance of 
her manner and the beauty of her face and figure, would 
have delighted an artist, as a model for his masterpiece. 
Added to these charms was a spirit radiant with the 
light of hope and joy; and a heart, pure as love, and 
faithful as truth. For thirty-seven years she made 
more than one heart contented and happy, and one home 
a paradise of peace and love. She merited the highest 
eulogium ever pronounced on woman — that which came 



30 MEN AND THINGS 

from the lips of the !Nazarene, when he said of Marv 
of Bethany: "She hath done what she could." I loved 
her, living, with an ardor for which language has no 
expression ; I mourned her, dead, with an anguish for 
which earth has no consolation. 

Josephine Strickland married John B. Peck, of At- 
lanta, Ga., and was the first of the class to pass away. 
Mary Sims married Lewis D. Palmer, now of Nash- 
ville, Term. She and Virginia M. Lester died on the 
same day, April 30, 1888. Virginia Sims married Mr. 
Backman — both are dead. Martha Erwin, who mar- 
ried Mr. W. H. Camp, now of Floyd County, Ga., is 
the only survivor of this class of splendid girls and 
noble women. She is now in "the sere and yellow 
leaf," but possesses all the sweetness, gentleness, mod- 
esty and sly humor of the long ago. 

My studies were grammar, geography, philosophy, 
chemistry, logic, rhetoric, composition, history and the 
Latin language. In spare hours I read "Plutarch's 
Lives," Irving's "Life of Columbus," Prescott's Con- 
quest of Mexico," Seneca's "Philosophy," and Locke on 
"The Understanding." I pursued these studies in this 
school during the year 1847 and the greater portion of 
1848. In 1849 I taught in the Academy at EUijay, 
Ga. ; and read law. I was admitted to the bar, at 
Spring Place, Ga., on N"ovember 28, 1849, by Judge 
Augustus R. Wright, after an examination in open 
court of four hours, by a committee consisting of Judge 
W, H. Underwood, Judge Turner H. Trippe, Warren 
Akin, J. W. Johnson, William Martin, and R. W. 
Jones. I entered upon the ordeal of that examination 



MEN AND THINGS SI 

with a trepidation that makes me shiver to think of now, 
but my good angel was not nodding at his post ; and it 
so happened that I did not fail to answer every ques- 
tion correctly. In pursuance of our engagement, Vir- 
ginia M. Lester and myself were united in marriage in 
Gumming, Ga., on January 22, 1850. I taught that 
year, in Ellijay; and continued my study of law. In 
the latter part of that year, we settled in Gumming. I 
possessed only two things — the best of wives, and the 
noblest of professions. 

On June 11, 1890, I was united in marriage to Mis3 
Annie Adelaide Jordan, in Eatonton, Ga., at the home 
of her aunt, Mrs. M. L. Eeid. She was the daughter 
of Warren H. Jordan, of Noxubee Gounty, Miss. — a 
native Georgian — and her mother was Miss Julia L. 
Hudson, of Eatonton, Ga. — both of whom died before 
she was grown. She is an accurate scholar, and an ac- 
complished pianist. Her sweet and gentle ministries 
of love and devotion to me, in joy and sorrow, in health 
and in sickness, have imposed upon me an obligation 
of gratitude I can never recompense. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Bab of Geoegia in 1850. 

At the time I was admitted, the bar of Georgia, com- 
pared most favorably with that of any State in the 
Union — indeed, with that of any age or country. At 
its head were John M. Berrien, Eobert M. Charlton, 
William Law, Francis S. Bartow, John E. Ward, 
Charles J. Jenkins, George W. Crawford, Andrew J. 
Miller, Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, Wil- 
liam C. Dawson, Francis H. Cone, Joshua Hill, Augus- 
tus Reese, Linton Stephens, Augustus H. Kennan, 
William McKinley, Eugeni^ A. jSTisbet, Barnard Hill, 
Washington Poe, Samuel P. Hall, Absalom H. Chap- 
pell, Henry G. Lamar, Seaborn Jones, Walter T. Col- 
quitt, Martin J. Crawford, Hines Holt, Henry L. Ben- 
ning, William Dougherty, Hiram Warner, Robert P. 
Trippe, Herschel V. Johnson, Edward Z. Hill, Benja- 
min H. Hill, Charles Dougherty, Junius Hillyer, 
Howell Cobb, Hope Hull, Thos. R. R, Cobb, James 
Jackson, Cincinattus Peoples, Thos. W. Thomas, B. H. 
Overby, Nathan L. Hutchins, Charles J. McDonald, 
David Irwin, Andrew J. Hansell, George D. Rice, Wil- 
liam H. Underwood, Turner H. Trippe, Warren Akin, 
Augustus R. Wright, George IST. Lester, John W. H. 
Underwood, Edward D. Chisolm, Joseph E. Brown, Lo- 
gan E. Bleckley, Dawson A. Walker, William H. Dab- 

32 



MEN AND THINGS 33 

ney, John B. Floyd, O. A. Lochrane, James L. Cal- 
houn, James Starke, William Martin, and the first 
Chief Justice of the State, Joseph Henry Limipkin. 
This list of illustrious lawyers furnished cabinet min- 
isters, senators and representatives in the United States 
Congress, equal to the best in the Union; governors, 
judges of the supreme and superior courts of the State ; 
and ministers to foreign countries. It contained many 
of the ablest statesmen and most eloquent orators of the 
age. In their day, they led the public sentiment, and 
moulded and shaped the public policy of the State, 
and largely, of the nation. They were the leaders of 
the bar. Yet there were hundreds of lawyers, very 
nearly, if not quite, their equal in legal learning and 
professional skill, in the management of causes in the 
courthouse. 

The country will never know its wealth of talent and 
capacity for public service, for two reasons — the mod- 
esty of meritorious men, and the lack of opportunity. 
Public position, like the clown's measles that "struck 
too large a family to go round," can not furnish the op- 
portunity to all the capable and meritorious. 

As a class, lawyers are the closest thinkers, and best 
logicians in the world. The reasons are obvious. The 
science of law trains its votaries in the best methods 
of securing its object, which is the ascertainment of 
truth and the enforcement of right. 

The definitions of the law are clear. Its distinctions 
being fine, must be accurately observed and drawn, con- 
flicts (or seeming conflicts) reconciled, language con- 
strued, doubts resolved, and its application to facts — in- 



34 MEN AND THINGS 

finitely varied — ^made; all to be done with reference 
to the rights of an anxious client; and involving the 
reputation of the lawyer, and frequently the bread of 
his family. His profession is a direct intellectual com- 
bat with an antagonist that may be relied upon to do 
his best to defeat him. The struggle is in the c^en — 
before the public — with a judge present to decide who 
is victor or vanquished. The practice of the law is the 
best possible training in the art of successful disputa- 
tion. It has the incentives to thorough research and 
thought, to the examination and study of both sides of 
a case or question. He studies the strength and the 
weakness of his adversary. He learns much of 
human nature and human infirmity by contact 
with parties, witnesses and jurors. It has been 
urged that the study and practice of law contracts and 
narrows the mind. Precisely the contrary is true. It 
expands the horizon of mental vision, enlarges the field 
of investigation, of inquiry, and liberalizes the process 
of thought. Law, in its different departments, of in- 
ternational, national, civil, criminal, military and mari- 
time, comprehends every right and interest of man ab- 
solute and relative, in all his relations. Familiarity 
with it and the knowledge of it, therefore, extend the 
range of thought, and increase the domain of knowl- 
edge. Jefferson and Hamilton, Piekney and Wirt, 
Webster and Choate, Clay and Crittenden, Prentiss and 
Douglass, and Stephens and Toombs, illustrate and dem- 
onstrate this truth. 

Able and upright lawyers are no unimportant factors 
in conserving the moral interests of society and eleva- 



MEN AND THINGS 35 

ting the tone of public sentiment to proper standards. 
The vindication of rights, the denunciation of wrongs, 
the maintenance of truth, and the exposure of false- 
hood, in the discussions of the courthouse, involving, 
as they do, the interest and rights of every spectator, 
is an education by no means lost on the public mind. 
Discussions of moral questions in the pulpit and on 'the 
platform deal with them in the abstract, in the court- 
house, in the concrete. 

It has been urged that lawyers were ambitious and 
inclined to seek office and honors. This is not true of 
them as a class, any more than it is of any class or pro- 
fession. It is perhaps true that more offices in the 
government are filled by them, than any other class. 
Civil government is an institution of law ; and a knowl- 
edge of the law is an important, if not a necessary, 
qualification for the duties of the office. In all judi- 
cial offices it is absolutely indispensable, and legal 
training and knowledge is a qualification for wise and 
intelligent legislation, as experience has abundantly 
shown. 

Lawyers have always ^-^d the van in the assertion, 
maintenance and defense of liberty. They have always 
stood for human rights and against the tyranny of des- 
potism. It was a lawyer who sounded the first note of 
hostility to British oppression in the Virginia House 
of Burgesses, in a resolution written on the fly- 
leaf of a law book. That sound had its last echo 
in the surrender of the British at Yorktown. A 
lawyer wrote the Declaration of Independence, The 
Constitution of the United States is mainly the product 



36 MEN AND THINGS 

of two lawyers — James Madison and Alexander Hamil- 
ton. These two great and patriotic lawyers were the 
representatives and exponents of two opposite schools 
of political thought and theories. They were equally 
able, honest and patriotic. They each urged their 
views with the emphasis of conviction. The Constitu- 
tion of the United States embodies the compromise of 
these opposing theories of civil government. 

John Somers, in a five minutes speech, procured the 
acquittal of the Bishops, in a trial, that drove the last 
of the Stuarts from his crown and kingdom. The 
learning and eloquence of Halifax and Somers obtained 
in the Convention Parliament, the limitations upon 
power and prerogative, secured in the Act of Settle- 
ment, and the Bill of Rights. The powerful denuncia- 
tions of oppression by Webster and Clay, in the Ameri- 
can Congress, thrilled and incited the Greeks to the 
resistance of Turkish despotism in Europe, and the 
Latins in opposing Spanish tyranny in South America. 

In the late war between the States, Bartow fell in 
the first fray and Cobb soon thereafter; and hundreds 
of lawyers of perhaps less learning and eloquence, but 
with equal valor and patriotism, "poured out their 
generous blood like water" in defense of the right of 
self-government, on more than five hundred fiercely 
fought fields. 

History amply vindicates the claim of the profession, 
to the highest niche in the temple of fame, for devo- 
tion to learning, liberty and patriotism. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Changes in the Law and Its Peooeduee Since 1850. 

At the time of which I write, Joseph Henry Lump- 
kin, Eugenius A. Nisbet and Hiram Warner occupied 
the Supreme bench. Such men as Edward Y. HiU, 
David Irwin, Junius Hillyer, John J. Eloyd, Garnett 
Andrews, Herschel V. Johnson, Francis H. Cone, Au- 
gustus R. Wright, and many others of equal ability, 
presided on the circuit bench. 

The Supreme Court was established in 1845, after a 
protracted struggle. The earlier volumes of its re- 
ports contain monumental evidence of the independence 
and learning of the first three judges. Lumpkin was 
learned, eloquent, impressive and humorous. ITisbet 
was equally learned, dignified and elegant; Warner 
was cold as a Siberian icicle, and clear as a tropical 
sunbeam. I confess that he was my ideal of a judge. 
I never think of him, as he sat upon the bench, strug- 
gling, sometimes alone, to uphold the constitution and 
the law against the debauchery and dishonesty of so- 
called relief legislation, without applying to him, the 
magnificent eulogium pronounced by the Attorney-Gen- 
eral, on the dead vice-president, when Cushing said of 
King: "He stands to the memory, in sharp outline, as 
it were, against the sky, like some chiseled column of 
antique art, or consular statue, of the Imperial republic, 

37 



38 ME2J AND THINGS 

wrapped in his marble robes and grandly beautiful in 
the simple dignity and unity of a faultless proportion." 

The last fifty years have wrought marvelous changes, 
in Georgia, in the law, its forms of procedure, and the 
questions with which it deals. The War and the al- 
tered conditions resulting from it have contributed 
greatly, if not mainly, in producing these changes. 

Before, the principles, practice and forms of equity 
and the common law were separate and distinct; now, 
they are merged. Then, the English common law forms 
in all their "vain" repetitions, and technical refinements 
and distinctions in pleadings, were followed ; now, the 
pleader states his client's case — in law or equity, what- 
ever it may be — in short, pithy paragraphs. Then, all 
persons interested in the event of the suit were incom- 
petent witnesses ; now, all parties living and sane (with 
a few exceptions) are competent. Then, only the 
parties to the record could be heard in the case ; now, 
anyone, in any way interested, may intervene and be 
heard. 

There has been as decided change in the subject- 
matter of litigation as in the forms of proceeding. The 
institution of slavery was the fountain of a stream that 
carried fortunes to the profession. The farmers be- 
came rich, breeding negroes, buying land and making 
cotton. The validity and construction of wills, breaches 
of warranty of the soundness of slaves, action of trover 
for their recovery and debt for large amounts of in- 
debtedness upon their sale — these and the trial of dis- 
puted land titles, as population increased and settle- 
ments were extended raised the questions upon which 



MEN AND THINGS Z9 

the legal giants fought their battles and won their fame 
and fortunes. 

This was the agi'icultural age of Georgia. The 
abolition of slavery eliminated from the courts this 
source of litigation, and substituted a totally diiferent 
kind of questions and controversies. The ordinance of 
the convention of 1865, providing for the adjustment, 
by the courts of Confederate contracts, upon the princi- 
ples of equity and justice, the depredations and tres- 
passes of home guards and robbers during the last years 
of the War, a;id the relief legislation of the reconstruc- 
tion period, filled the courts for a few years with a 
flood of litigation. But this was necessarily tempo- 
rary, and soon passed away. Now (1904), commercial 
and corporation law and practice are regnant, and con- 
fined, principally, to the cities and larger railroad 
towns. In the rural counties the practice arises from 
the levy of distress warrants and executions upon the 
foreclosure of liens, and the defense of negroes for 
larceny, robbery and burglary usually by assignment 
of the court. How the hundreds of young men, an- 
nually brought to the bar by colleges, universities and 
otherwise, are to win bread, by the practice, in the 
light of the present outlook, is their problem ; not mine. 
It is alleged that some of the more enterprising mem- 
bers of the profession — especially in cities — have hench- 
men employed to hunt up business, and that they follow 
a train wreck, like vultures, the scent of a carcass. I 
hope, for the honor of the profession, that this allega- 
tion is a slander. 

This progress, reform, or certainly change in our law, 



40 MEN AND THINGS 

commenced in 1847 upon the passage of the act which 
substituted, for the common forms of pleading, the short 
forms, popularly known as the "Jack Jones forms." 
The law allowing appeals in the superior court was 
repealed. The marital rights of the husband as to 
property owned by the wife at the time of marriage 
or acquired by her after marriage were wholly changed. 
The homestead laws enlarged from their pony propor- 
tion up to sixteen hundred dollars worth of property — 
real and personal — which, however, is practically nulli- 
fied by the creditor invariably taking a waiver note 
and mortgage on everything that the debtor owns or 
ever expects to own. The school law which humanity 
provided for the education of the poor has given place 
to a system that imposes annually, upon the people of 
the State, a tax of nearly two millions — a large portion 
of which is devoted to training negro children in idle- 
ness and crime, under the pretext of qualifying them 
for useful citizenship. These and numerous other 
radical changes have been made in our law to such an 
extent that if a Georgia lawyer had fallen asleep in 
1850 and waked up in 1904 Kip Van Winkle would 
have been no more remembered! Whether these 
changes were all wise and promotive of the public in- 
terest raises a question upon which opinions will differ. 
The British government sent an agent to this country 
to investigate the question of law reform, who carried 
back copies of the "Jack Jones" forms of pleading, 
which were enacted into law by Parliament. The 



MEN AND THINGS 41 

joimgest of her American colonies, in less than one 
hundred years from the establishment of its independ- 
ence, furnished to the Mother of the common law her 
form of pleading. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Secession and Reconstruction. 

On the sixteenth day of January, 1861, the people 
of Georgia, by their chosen delegates, assembled in con- 
vention at the capitol in Milledgeville. 

This was perhaps a body of the ablest men ever 
assembled in the State. The magnitude of the issue 
to be considered and determined induced the people to 
select the men supposed to be best qualified to deter- 
mine wisely. 

The people were prosperous ; many of them rich ; all 
of them peaceful and happy. They o^vned African 
slaves, numbering hundreds of thousands. Their barns 
were crowded with fullness and plenty. They ex- 
hibited the finest type of society civilization ever pre- 
sented. This prosperity had been achieved in the 
Union, under the protection of the Constitution of the 
United States. The practical nullification of the fugi- 
tive slave provision of the Constitution, by the hostile 
legislation of fourteen States, and the election of a 
President by them from one section of the Union, upon 
the issue of hostility to the institution of African slav- 
ery as it existed in the Southern States, convinced a 
majority of the convention that their safety and pres- 
ervation of their rights could only be secured by dis- 
solving their relation with States thus faithless to con- 

42 



MEN AND THINGS 43 

stitutional obligations. Three days after the conven- 
tion met — on the nineteenth of January, 1861 — it 
adopted, by a vote of 166 yeas to 130 nays, the Ordi- 
nance of Secession, and thus withdrew from the Union, 
in the exercise of the right of self-government asserted 
in the Declaration of Independence. This opened 
"Pandora's box," and a tragedy was enacted that Gen- 
eral W. T. Sherman rightly named "hell." 

On the twenty-fifth of October, 1865, another con- 
vention of the people assembled at the same place. The 
environments were different. The slaves had been freed 
by force ; the barns were empty ; the fields, gardens and 
orchards had been trampled down; dwellings robbed; 
cities sacked and burned; live stock slaughtered or 
stolen; mills and factories demolished; churches pro- 
faned and cemeteries desecrated; the flower of South- 
ern chivalry dead ; the land groaning in poverty, widow- 
hood and orphanage; and crushed by the iron heel of 
a relentless military despotism; the people put under 
the government of military satraps. This convention, 
like the former, was composed of able and patriotic 
men. Herschel V. Johnson presided over its delibera- 
tions and Charles J. Jenkins led them upon the floor. 

President Johnson had adopted his plan of readjust- 
ing the seceded States in their relations to the Union. 
James Johnson, an able and conservative citizen of the 
county of Muscogee, had been appointed Provisional 
Governor, and the convention assembled for this pur- 
pose. The Ordinance of Secession was promptly re- 
pealed by a unanimous vote, the payment of the War 
debt prohibited and the emancipation of the slaves ex- 



44 MEN AND THINGS 

pressly recognized. The presidential program of recon- 
struction was literally carried out. A State constitu- 
tion was adopted in conformity to the Constitution of 
the United States. A general election for Governor, 
members of Congress and members of the General As- 
sembly was held. Charles J. Jenkins was elected Gov- 
ernor. 

"The pure of the purest, 
The hand that upheld our bright banner, the surest." 
The legislature assembled on the fourth of December 
and unanimously ratified the thirteenth amendment to 
the Federal Constitution, prohibiting the existence of 
slavery. Charles J. Jenkins was inaugurated Governor 
on December 19, 1865, and Provisional Governor James 
Johnson relinquished the conduct of the State affairs 
to the authorities thus constituted. The legislature 
elected Alexander H. Stephens and Herschel V. John- 
son United States Senators. The people supposed that 
constitutional civil government was restored, that mili- 
tary domination would cease, and that they could per- 
sue their avocations in peace and hope, if in toil and 
poverty, but this was a mistake. The legislature met 
on November 1, 1866. The fourteenth amendment to 
the Constitution had been submitted to the State for 
ratification. Governor Jenkins, in his message to the 
legislature, made a masterly argument against ratifi- 
cation. The legislature declined to ratify by a unani- 
mous vote in the senate, and by a vote of 132 to 2 in the 
house. Major-General John Pope assumed command 
in the third military district, containing Georgia, Flor- 
ida and Alabama, on April 1, 1866, Civil government 



MEN AND THINGS 45 

having been restored and in successful operation in the 
State, Governor Jenkins made an effort to bring the 
question of the constitutionality of the reconstruction 
act before the Supreme Court for adjudication. This 
effort failed. The State of Georgia presented the 
anomalous spectacle of being under two governments — 
a civil government under constitutional law adminis- 
tered by Governor Jenkins, and a military despotism, in 
violation of law, enforced by Major-General John Pope. 
On the sixth of January, 1868, Major-General 
George G. Meade assumed command in the third mili- 
tary district. Congress had repudiated the Presidential 
scheme of reconstruction and adopted that provided in 
the several reconstruction acts; and impeached the 
President. 

On January 11 the State officers were admonished 
under color of authority, not to interfere with the exer- 
cise of military authority in the States composing the 
third district. Governor Jenkins and State Treasurer 
Jones were ordered to pay out of the public treasury 
the public money, under military order, which they 
declined to do for the reason that they had taken an 
oath to support the Constitution, which provided that 
"ISTo money shall be drawn from the treasury of this 
State, except by appropriations made by law. Where- 
upon General Meade issued the following order: 
"Charles J. Jenkins, Provisional Governor, and John 
Jones, Provisional Treasurer, of the State of Georgia, 
having declined to respect the instructions and failed 
to co-operate with the Major-General commanding the 
third military district, are hereby removed from office. 



46 MEN AND THINGS 

Brevet Brigadier-General Thomas H. Ruger appointed 
Governor and Brevet Captain Charles F. Rockwell to 
be Treasurer of Georgia." 

A constitutional civil government in a time of peace 
was thus summarily abolished by an order, on the 
ground that its officers refused to violate their official 
oaths and allow the treasury robbed, and a military 
despotism substituted in its place and the treasury 
opened to the robbers. 

Under the congressional plans of reconstruction, a 
registration of voters, under the first civil act, was 
ordered, and an election for delegates to a constitu- 
tional convention. One hundred and eighty-eight 
thousand six hundred and forty-seven voters, white and 
black, were registered. The white majority was about 
2,000. The election of delegates was held from October 
29th to ISTovember 3d. Of the delegates chosen, 133 
were white and 33 black. John E. Bryant, of Skowhe- 
gan, Maine, was one of the whites, and Aaron Alpeoria 
Bradley and Tunis G. Campbell, from the southern 
coast of Georgia, were two of the blacks. This white and 
black spotted convention assembled in Atlanta, under 
the supervision of General Meade, made for Georgia the 
organic law, known as the Constitution of 1868. On 
March 14, 1868, a military order was issued for an 
election commencing April 20th, to continue four days, 
on the ratification of the Constitution, and for State 
officers, representatives in Congress, and members of 
the General Assembly, of which three Senators and 
twenty-five representatives elected were negroes. On 
July 4, 1868, "pursuant to General Order No. 98, is- 



MEN AND THINGS 47 

«ued from Headquarters, Third Military District, De- 
partment of Georgia, Alabama and Florida, dated At- 
lanta, Georgia, July 3, 1868," the Legislature met in 
Atlanta, and was organized by R. B. Bullock, under 
military order of Gen. Meade. 

On July 29th, Joshua Hill and H. V. M. Miller 
were elected United States Senators. The fourteenth 
amendment to the Constitution was ratified, and all 
the conditions of Congressional reconstruction complied 
with. On July 28, 1868, the State was declared to be 
restored to the Union. 

Upon examination of the Constitution of the State, 
no provision thereof expressly gave to the negroes the 
right to hold office ; the negroes were therefore expelled 
from the Legislature. On December 22, 1869, Con- 
:gress passed ''An Act to promote the Reconstruction of 
the State of Georgia." Whereupon Rufus B. Bullock 
issued the following order: "Atlanta, January 8, 1870. 
In pursuance of the Act of Congi-ess (to promote the 
reconstruction of the State of Georgia), approved De- 
cember 22, 1869, it is ordered that J. W. G. Mills, 
Esqr., as Clerk pro tem. will proceed to organize the 
Senate. He will call the body to order at 12 o'clock 
M., on Monday, the tenth instant, in the Senate cham- 
ber. The names of the persons proclaimed as elected 
members of the Senate, in the order of General Meade, 
dated "Headquarters, Third Military District, Depart- 
ment of Georgia, Florida and Alabama, Atlanta, Ga., 
January 25, 1868, General Order 90. As each name 
is called, the person so summoned will, if not disquali- 
fied, proceed to the clerk's desk, and take oath or make 



48 MEN AND THINGS 

affirmation (as the case may be) prescribed in the said 
act, before Judge Smith, United States Commissioner, 
who will be present and administer the oath. When 
the oaths are so executed, thej will be filed with the 
Honorable, the Secretary of State, or his deputy, who 
will be present; when all the names mentioned in 
said order of General Meade, have been called as be- 
fore provided, such of the persons as shall be qualified 
will thereupon proceed to organize by the election and 
qualification of the proper officers." 

RuFus B. Bullock, 
Provisional Governor. 

On February 15, 1870, the General Assembly pro- 
ceeded to elect three United States Senators, after hav- 
ing already elected two — Messrs. Hill and Miller, who 
were in life, had not resigned, were at Washington 
applying for their seats, and whose term of service 
had not expired. But, of course, official oaths and 
constitutional obligations were cobwebs, with the ma- 
jority of the Legislature. Foster Blodgett was declared 
elected for the term of six years, to commence on March 
4, 1871. Henry P. Farrow was declared elected for 
the term expiring on March 4, 1873, and Richard H. 
Whitely was declared elected for the term expiring 
March 4, 1871. Georgia had seven Senators in life, 
elected — not one of whom had been permitted to qual- 
ify, and take his seat. The patriotic members of the 
Senate entered upon the journals their indignant pro- 
test. But Provisional Governor Rufus B. Bullock had 
the protection of Brevet Major-G«neral Alfred H. 



MEN AND THINGS 49 

Terry, cominanding the military district of the State 
of Georgia. 

On July 18, 1870, the Provisional Governor in- 
formed the General Assembly that he had secured un- 
oflScial information of the passage of an act to admit 
the State to representation in Congress, and adding 
that he was informed that "the Greneral commanding 
will make no objection to the General Assembly pro- 
ceeding with legislation." The Governor and Treas- 
urer, presented against each other, respectively, charges 
of high crimes and misdemeanors, which were investi- 
gated by a joint committee of the two houses of the 
General Assembly during the months of May and Jime, 
1870. The evidence, and the report of the committee, 
which appears on the journal of the General Assembly, 
establish the guilt of both. Eeconstruction in the se- 
ceded States, was a reign of falsehood, lawlessness, rob- 
bery and despotism. It is due to a few able and patri- 
otic members of that historic Legislature, to say that 
they made a manly and gallant stand for constitutional 
liberty and common honesty, for which the country 
owed them a debt of gratitude it will be difficult to dis- 
charge. Finally the State was allowed representation 
in Congress. Gov. Bullock found it necessary to his 
safety to retire from the State before the expiration of 
his term of service. A new election installed an honest 
democratic administration. 

In 1877, the people of Georgia held a constitutional 
convention, over which that incorruptible statesman 
and patriot, Charles J. Jenkins, presided; and estab- 
lished a Constitution that secured white over black do- 



50 MEN AND THINGS 

mination, and restored the supremacy of the civil over 
the military authority. 

The men who invoked, imposed and enforced Con- 
gressional Reconstruction upon a brave and patriotic 
people — defeated in war — in the anguish of grief, and 
thralldom of poverty, sacrificed honor, race and liberty 
for power and plunder, and have gone to history, em- 
balmed in infamy. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Conditions apteb the War — Lawyees. 

The reconstruction regime packed the judiciary, as 
far as possible, with judges in sympathy with their 
policy. That policy had greatly demoralized the pub- 
lic sentiment. This was especially true in certain sec- 
tions of the State. The people of the mountain region 
of the State were opposed to secession. They lived 
remote from cities and railroads, owned few slaves, 
made an honest living by hard labor, and distilled their 
corn and fruit without revenue. They did not care 
whether slavery was established or prohibited in the 
territories; the government was beneficent to them. 
They honored its founders, loved its traditions, and 
were proud of its flag. Their delegates in the conven- 
tion were nearly unanimous in opposing secession. 
Several of their delegates declined to sign the ordinance 
after it was adopted. These people had bright intel- 
lects, strong convictions and high prejudices. They 
were true and faithful in their friendships, bitter and 
relentless in their enmities, generous in hospitality, and 
full of resources in the execution of their purposes. 
When the war came they were divided. Most of them 
joined the Confederate, but some the Union army; and 
many sought to avoid service in either. During the war, 
Home Guards, representing both sides — imder the pre- 

51 



52 ME2i AND THINGS 

text of protecting — plundered the people. When the 
war ended, and the men returned home with four years' 
training in the nursing and indulgence of passion, it 
will be readily perceived that collisions and conflicts 
were inevitable. The influence of reconstruction prin- 
ciples, practices and ethics, superadded to the partisan 
prejudices and passions engendered by the war, left the 
people in a state of demoralization that found expres- 
sion in disorganization and crime. Men appeared at 
public gatherings and superior courts with imiforms 
and army, or navy pistols buckled around them, look- 
ing daggers at those supposed to be or to have been 
enemies, and anxious for an excuse or an opportunity 
for revenge. The Union element felt that they had 
triumphed in war, and seemed to exult in the oppres- 
sions of reconstruction, relying upon those in power to 
protect them in whatever line of conduct they saw 
proper to adopt or pursue. Inoffensive men were shot 
down unceremoniously in open daylight, at the supper 
table, at night, or from ambush while at work in the 
field. A conviction for murder could not be secured. 
Judges, solicitors and jurymen were of the party tem- 
porarily in power. William P. Milton, at Ellijay, 
while sitting at supper at his home, was shot through 
a window, and killed. Worly sneaked up behind Wil- 
liam Ellington, and shot him in the back. Hately rode 
into town in open daylight and shot James G. Inlow 
through the head as he sat on the sidewalk, killing him 
instantly. N'ear "White path," Bartley Pinson, while 
ploughing in his field, was shot from ambush and fell 
dead in his tracks; and not one of the criminals was 



MEN AND THINGS 53 

convicted. At Morgantown, James Morris, a kind- 
hearted old gentleman over seventy years of age, was 
aroused about midnight by the screams of a woman in 
distress, and walked across the public square to the house 
of Spencer Pruitt, ordinary of the county, whence the 
cry of distress proceeded. He stepped into the house, 
and asked : "In the name of God, what does this mean ?" 
Whereupon Pruitt, a very large, strong man, — who was 
shamefully abusing his wife, seized Morris and 
held him until he made his two boys stab him to death. 
The next day Pruitt pointed to the boys, and said: 
"There are the brave chaps who stabbed the d — old 
rascal to death." Pruitt and his boys were indicted. 
He escaped, and was never tried. The boys were tried, 
of course, before a Republican judge, prosecuted by a 
Republican solicitor-general, and a Republican jury. 
James R. Brown and I were employed to aid the prose- 
cution, which we did, to the utmost of our ability. 
Unknown to us and the court, Pruitt's friends had 
armed themselves, and formed a conspiracy to kill 
Brown and myself in the courthouse as soon as a verdict 
of guilty was returned. Samuel Ralston was informed 
of it, armed a number of his friends, and notified the 
leader of the conspiracy that he and his crowd were 
under observation, and the first motion towards vio- 
lence they made would cost them their lives. The de- 
fense was that they were under fourteen years of age, 
and acted in obedience to the order of their father. 
They were acquitted. Later, Duke Palmer, a lawyer 
living in Cleveland, was returning home from Towns 
superior court, and was shot in the back by an assassin 



64 MEN AND THINGS 

concealed in the bushes on the roadside. It so hap- 
pened that he and I occupied the same room at the 
hotel, in Hiawassee. He was a brave man, and of su- 
perior intellect. The night before he was killed, he 
gave me an account of his life, and especially his ad- 
ventures in Mexico, which were both thrilling and ro- 
mantic. We sat up until midnight, in conversation. 
The next morning he bade me: "good-bye," seeming 
cheerful and happy — little dreaming of the tragic fate 
awaiting him. That afternoon at 2 o'clock I organized 
an inquest over his dead body, as it lay in the road, 
covered with dust and blood. The assassin was con- 
cealed behind a stump about ten paces from the road. 
A party was indicted and tried in Towns superior court, 
but acquitted. These cases are mentioned as a sample 
of many others — as illustrating the disorganized state 
of society, gTOwing out of the secession and reconstruc- 
tion of the State. 

The courts in the coimties of Gilmer, Fannin, Union 
and Towns were held in May and October. The soft, 
balmy zephyrs, the murmur of sparkling water- 
falls and the fragrance of roses, azalias and laurel 
blooms in May; and the variegated hues of ex- 
tensive and magnificent forests, and the brisk, health- 
ful breezes of October, were delightful beyond the power 
of expression. Environment, with these charms and 
beauties of nature, ought to mollify the malignity of 
hate ; and purify and etherealize the spi rit of love ; and 
doubtless it did. The spirit and discussions of the 
bar had a most favorable influence in allaying party 
animosities. The lawyers were a jolly, noble set of 



MEN AND THINGS 55 

fellows, full of good humor, and from envy, perfectly 
free. The lawyers who practiced in the mountain 
counties of the Blue Ridge Circuit, were : Geo. D. Rice, 
James R. Brown, William P. Price, C. D. Phillips, C, 
J. Wellborn, Wier Boyd, Marshall L. Smith, E. W. 
Chastain, J. E. Alsabrook, W. H. Simmons, J. A. 
Jervis, and James Butt, Democrats ; and John S. Fain, 
John A. Wimpy, W. T. Crane, W. T. Day, Samuel C. 
Johnson, James M. Bishop, Republicans. These men 
fought like tigers over their cases in the courthouse, 
but when the intellectual combat was ended — being 
personal friends — their social intercourse with each 
other and with the people was of the kindliest and most 
pleasant character. Their conduct, prompted by a high 
sense of obligation to the public, did much to restore a 
better state of feeling among the people. They were 
greatly aided by a class of substantial citizens of each 
of the parties, who stood for the right and against the 
wrong; who had wisdom enough to see the folly of the 
strife, and patriotism sufficient to endeavor to stop it. 
When the war cases were disposed of in the courts, an 
honest Democratic administration of the State govern- 
ment inaugurated, and capable Democratic judges 
placed on the bench, peace was restored and the wrongs 
and passions of these stormy and turbulent times rele- 
gated to the historian. Most of these men — either be- 
fore or after the time of which I write — held high 
office. Chastain and Price were representatives in 
Congress; Rice, Brown and Wellborn, judges of the 
Superior Court ; and Smith, judge of the City Court of 
Gainesville. Phillips, Johnson, Bishop, Wellborn and 



56 MEN AND THINGS 

Greer, solicitors-general. Eight of them were State 
Senators. Three, Rice, Chastain and Day, were mem- 
bers of the Secession Convention. Seven of these men, 
Rice, Chastain, Alsabrook, Fain, Johnson, Boyd and 
Bishop, have crossed the silent river. They lived in a 
time of peace, and through the storms of war. They 
each did their duty as they understood it. Honor to 
their memory and peace to their ashes! 

Rice was a very able lawyer, deeply read in the law, 
devoting his entire attention to its study and practice. 
He prepared his cases thoroughly, briefed the questions 
of law and fact — both leading and collateral — elabor- 
ately, and therefore entered upon the trial well equip- 
ped. When he went upon the bench of the Western 
Oircuit, he turned over to me five cases in Lumpkin 
Superior Court. They were so well prepared that I 
found it easy to win all of them. 

Brown was a superb lawyer and practitioner. It 
was delightful to be associated with him in a case. He 
studied and practiced law as a scientific system, devised 
for the enforcement of human rights, in conformity to 
certain established rules. He seized with promptness, 
the controlling questions in the case, fortified his posi- 
tion with authority and logic, and usually carried the 
strong points of his adversary by assault. 

Chastain was admitted to the bar without reading 
law, in middle life. He possessed a fine intellect, hand- 
some person, and was brave as Roland. He was a born 
politician, and the loader of his section. He was Rep- 
resentative and Senator in the State Legislature, and 
twice a Representative in Congress. He was intensely 



MEN AND THINGS 57 

Southern. His friends were devoted to him, and his 
enemies respected and feared him. He was a fluent 
speaker, knew men, and was formidable before juries. 

Price was a good lawyer, but it seemed to me that he 
never enjoyed the disputes and contentions of the court- 
house. As a lawyer, he was open, manly and fair. In 
his practice, he sought the triumph of the truth and 
the right. He rendered invaluable service to the State 
as a member of the Legislature, in reconstruction time. 
As a member of Congress, he secured the Mint at Dah- 
lonega, from the Government, and the establishment of 
the ]^orth Georgia Agricultural College, a service that 
merits the gratitude of the people, and enshrines him 
in their affection. He is a cultured, courtly, Christian 
gentleman. 

Boyd was unique, admitted to the bar past mid- 
dle life, while Clerk of the Superior Court of Lump- 
kin County, he was more familiar with the forms 
of practice than the principles of jurisprudence. He 
never had the slightest conception that his client could 
possibly be in the wrong or his adversary in the right. 
He was intensely ardent in his convictions, absolutely 
honest; saw a case or legal principle only from his 
standpoint, and never dreamed that any other view was 
admissible, or any modification possible. His view of 
the settlement or compromise of a case was to demand 
a bonus for taking all he claimed. His antagonist 
might therefore rely upon a fight to the bitter end. 
His character, earnestness and honesty made him a 
power before a jury that knew him. 

Smith was a jurist, not an advocate. He was a close 



58 MEN AND THINGS 

student, with a clear, incisive intellect; and reveled in 
the complex and abstruse subleties of metaphysics. If 
he had lived in the time of Aristotle, the Greeks would 
have voted him an Apotheosis, as the divinity of techni- 
calities. He saw — clear as a sunbeam — defects and 
objections to pleadings, proof and everything the other 
side did, alleged or said. His style was cold, clear and 
conversational. He was perfectly conscientious. While 
he enjoyed winning a case on its merits, he was charmed 
and delighted to triumph on a technicality. As asso- 
ciate counsel, in consultation, as you would state the 
strong points of your case, he would suggest a thousand 
questions that might arise in your case, and was equally 
fruitful in suggesting difficulties in the adversary's 
way. Occasionally he made points of inestimable 
value. It was always much more safe to have him 
■with you than against you. 

Phillips, unlike Smith, cared nothing for technicali- 
ties. He was rather a loose pleader. His mind 
quick in action, his person imposing, his humor exu- 
berant, his invective withering — all taken together, 
made him an advocate of decided power. His speech 
in the prosecution of Rogers for murder, in Fannin 
Superior Court, the presiding judge (Lester) thought 
was the finest he ever heard. 

Wellborn was a good lawyer, of finely balanced mind 
and character. His pleading neat, he presented his 
proofs clearly, and sought the triumph of right and 
justice in the administration of the law. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Amusing Incidents in Court. 

It often happens that in the contention of strife and 
anxieties of court proceedings, something will occur to 
excite mirth, and relieve the tension of counsel and liti- 
gants. The spectators are always on the ''qui vive," 
for something of this sort. It is astonishing how^ 
quickly they catch a sally of wit, a felicitous retort, or 
an exhibition of the ludicrous. They listen to the 
judge and lawyers, and scan the witnesses, in the ex- 
pectation of hearing something either interesting or 
amusing. A witness was on the stand in Cherokee Su- 
perior Court. He was a minister of the Gospel. I 
have observed that a certain class of that sacred profes- 
sion (I hope a small one), on the witness stand, always 
seek to impress themselves upon the court and country 
— they generally succeed. I never understood the rea- 
son for it. But it has been true since the time of the 
Rev. Burwell Shines. The witness in question was a 
master in the figurative style of speech, as the 
sequel will show. He had made his statement 
in answer to questions, on the direct examina- 
tion. The late Judge George iN". Lester, conduct- 
ing the cross examination, said : "Do I understand you 
to state so and so," repeating the statement made by 
the witness to which he replied with an air of offended 

59 



60 MEN AND THINGS 

sacradotal dignity: "Mistur Lustur, I have chawed my 
terbacker." 

On a certain Tuesday morning, in Ellijay, just as I 
entered the courtroom, the judge called the case of 
George Ellis vs. William Cole, trover, and announced 
Greer for the plaintiff. The parties announced 
"ready." Counsel read the declaration to the jury, 
and swore the plaintiff as a witness, who went upon the 
stand. He had an expression of peculiar sadness that 
engaged my attention, excited my curiosity, and pre- 
sented an imploring appeal for sympathy. He was tall, 
angular and bony in physique, with very black hair and 
bear. His head had the appearance of having been 
just taken from a charcoal heap; his arms were long, 
and hands and feet large. His trousers lacked about 
four inches of reaching to his shoes, which were home- 
made and of primitive style. He was in his shirt- 
sleeves — that is, he was without coat or vest — the collar 
unbuttoned. The buttons on his bosom were manufac- 
tured of coarse, cotton thread. His shoulders were so 
round, or rather bent, that when they touched the wall 
his head projected about one foot from it, as he stood 
upon the stand. As he stood thus he was the living 
personification of sorrow. From his testimony, which 
was delivered in monosyllables mainly, it appeared that 
he did a certain amount of ditching, for which Cole was 
to pay him a cow and calf and a rifle-gun. The gun 
was delivered; Cole refused to deliver the cattle. The 
calf had died, but another calf had succeeded it. The 
action was brought to recover the cow and her increase. 
Greer (feeling that he had proven a strong case), turned 



MEN AND THINGS 61 

the witness to the other side for examination. "Ah, 
stop a moment, Mr. Ellis. What became of that cow 
and calf?" With an expression of anguish, that he 
would be supposed to show in looking for the last time 
upon his wife's coffin, he answered in these words: 
"They tell me that the cow are dead, and that the calf 
what she had superior to that time were in the same 
fix." 

Unity in variety seems to be a universal law of na- 
ture. Of all the multitudinous leaves of the forest, no 
two of them are precisely alike. The same is true of 
the forms, features and intellectual attributes of the 
human race. Men appearing very much alike in many 
respects, yet differ widely in an infinite variety of char- 
acteristics. We meet, occasionally, a man of no merit, 
but great ignorance and self-assertion, who moves among 
his fellows with a sort of "hail, the conquering hero 
comes" air that advertises him as a candidate for the 
popularity and fame among men, for which he has al- 
ready given himself credit. His manners and move- 
ments are as pompous and bombastic as a Pronuncia- 
mento, of Santa Anna, in revolutionary times in Mexico. 
Whether this characteristic results from a high soul, 
with lofty aspirations, that has been starved and 
dwarfed by the want of opportimities for expansion and 
development, or whether it is the offspring of narrow, 
contracted ignorance, stimulated by an unworthy and 
unattainable ambition, presents a problem that is re- 
ferred to the psychological, for solution. These reflec- 
tions have been suggested by the character of a witness 
for the State in the case of the State vs. Richard Ratliff, 



62 MEN AND THINGS 

charged with the offense of assault and battery, in Gil- 
mer Superior Court. This witness was a man of strik- 
ing appearance and manner. He was slightly above 
medium height, a little rotund but of shapely figure, 
with rather a springy, yet dignified movement. His 
complexion was florid and nose decidedly red. He 
wore a black Prince Albert coat, a beaver hat, standing 
collar, supported by a rather wide black stock. Taken 
altogether, he was by no means a man of repulsive ap- 
pearance — rather the contrary. His great pretention 
was his facility in the use of words; his strength lay 
in his capacity to coin them, and his weakness in his 
total ignorance of their meaning. The trouble out of 
which the indictment grew, occurred at a "road work- 
ing." Of course a "road working" without at least one 
fight would be justly esteemed a failure. There was 
but one on this occasion, but this one had in it (accord- 
ing to the statement of the witness) the element of what 
the lawyers call a "continuendo," when the witness 
related the first part (for it took place in installments), 
and stopped. "Go on," said the solicitor-general, "and 
state what next occurred." Straightening up himself, 
and adjusting his stock and standing collar, with an ex- 
pression on his face which gave the public notice, that 
something important was about to happen, he said: 
"Previous aufter that, I was foUering along before, and 
seen the priminary gwines on." 

In Union Superior Court the case of John Doe ex 
dem. Brown, et al. vs. Richard Roe, cas. ejr., and 
Smith, tenant, etc., was on trial. The defense was the 
statute of limitations. The late witty, humorous, elo- 



MEHf AND THINGS 63 

quent John W. H. Underwood, was counsel for defend- 
ant. A witness on the stand had stated clearly and in- 
telligently about the possession of the lot sued for, how 
much was cleared, etc., when the following occurred. 
Counsel: "Mr. Witness, you say Smith is in possession 
of this lot of land, claiming it as his ?" Witness : "Yes, 
sir." Counsel: "You say Smith cleared twenty acres 
of the lot?" Witness: "Yes, sir." Counsel: "When 
did Smith first enter into the possession of it?" Wit- 
ness: "I don't remember the time." Counsel: "See if 
you can not refresh your recollection?" Witness: 
^'Well, Squire, really (scratching his head just behind 
the right ear), I can't remember. Counsel: "Was it in 
the spring, summer, fall or winter?" Witness: (In a 
deep study for a moment), then, brightening up, an- 
swered : "Ah ! I remember now. Squire, it was the time 
that March Addington wintered John Butt's bull." 

In the rural districts of the country, before the ad- 
vent of railroads, telegraphs, telephones, daily mails, 
common schools, and cheap watches, even the most in- 
telligent paid but little attention to dates. There was 
nothing in their surroundings that made it especially 
necessary to store away in the garret of memory the 
rubbish of dry and useless dates. It was convenient for 
them to regulate their calendar by important events, oc- 
curring under their own observation. Very few knew 
or cared anything about the day on which Columbus 
sailed from Palos on his great voyage of discovery, or 
when he discovered San Salvador, or the date of the 
inauguration of the Reformation, or when the last of 
the "Stuarts" was driven from the throne, the Briti.sh 



64 MEN AND THINGS 

dynasty changed and the ''Bill of Rights" adopted by 
the Convention Parliament. But, ''Big Court," the 
"Camp-meeting" and the "Fourth of July Barbecue," 
they attended and remembered. These events became 
epochal in their history, as the bases from which they 
reckoned time. The fact that March Addington "win- 
tered John Butt's bull," was perhaps of less impor- 
tance than these historic events ; yet it was by no means 
of insignificance in vindicating the truth of a question 
involving time. There is a deep philosophy underlying 
these facts. It is found in the statement that if you 
wish to interest a person in any matter, you must iden- 
tify him with its activities. It is upon this principle 
that a wife never forgets the date of her marriage, or a 
mother the birth of her child. The question of time 
arises in some form, in the trial of every case. The 
case of the State vs. Hugh Porter, for malicious mis- 
chief w^as no exception to the rule. The fact alleged 
as constituting the offense was the killing of Shade 
Green's cow by Porter, in his corn-field. Mr. Green 
was a man of some humor which, though in the rough, 
would sometimes sparkle. He was an honest man and 
a truthful witness; which, unfortunately, can not be 
said of all witnesses. The cow was found dead in Por- 
ter's cornfield ; the damage to the corn, the habit of the 
animal and the height of the fence, were under investi- 
gation. John Echols, a witness, had described the 
height of the fence by stating that "he could stand 
astride of it." Mr. Green, the prosecutor, was on the 
stand. I asked him, as follows : "How high was Por- 
ter's fence ?" to which he replied : "It was about up to 



MEN AND TH INGS 65 

John Echols' fork." To the question : "When was the 
cow found dead ?" he answered : "It was summers along 
in tatur diggin time." I asked: "When do we dig po- 
tatoes ?" He replied : "Ah ! Well now, that depends 
entirely on when the bread gives out." 

Augustus M. Russell was a man of strongly marked 
characteristics in many respects. In person, he was 
tall — six feet and two inches — his hair straight and 
black, with brown eyes and synunetrical form. His in- 
tellect was of a very high order, bright, active and vig- 
orous. By affinity, his relations and connections were, 
socially and intellectually, high ; by the law of moral 
gravitation, his associations were otherwise. With his 
mental superiority, steady habits, close application and 
extensive research would have easily placed him kmong 
those at the head of his profession anywhere. As it 
was, his professional reading did not extend far beyond 
Hotchkiss' Codification and Cobb's Analysis and 
Forms. His clients and cases were of a class that did 
not yield a revenue equal to the "steel trust" and 
"Standard Oil Company." To contemplate him as a 
whole was suggestive of royalty in ruins. The Hon. 
Alexander H. Stephens told me of an adventure he had 
with him at Calhoun, Ga. Mr. Stephens made a speech 
during a political campaign at which Hussell happened 
to be present. When he concluded, Russell's friends 
and chums called on him to reply, which he did, and in 
which he most recklessly assailed Stephens with all sorts 
of charges without the slightest regard to truth — to 
one of which, that greatly nettled Mr. Stephens, he 
sharply said : "I deny the fact." Russell paused a 



66 MEN AND THINGS 

moment, and then said, ''Yes, fellow citizens, that is 
the gentleman's trouble, he always denies the facts." 
Mr. Stephens added that that lesson taught him the im- 
portance of caution in the use of words. 

In Lumpkin Superior Court, Russell was defending 
a client, charged with an offense by special presentment 
of the grand jury. The presentment had not been en- 
tered on the minutes of court, as the law required. He 
moved to quash the presentment on that ground. The 
solicitor-general moved an order to enter it on the min- 
utes of court "ISTunc pro tunc," to which he responded: 
"May it please your honor, I have examined all the au- 
thorities, searched Hotchkiss and Cobb (and your honor 
knows Mr. Cobb was a very sharp man), and I can not 
find in the books any authority for the making of a 
nunc pro tunc business out of a special presentment." 
The judge ruled that there was such authority. 

Emancipation changed many things. Among them, 
the definition of the crime of disturbing religious wor- 
ship. The change was from a "Congregation of white 
persons, assembled for public worship" to "A congrega- 
tion of persons assembled for Divine service." Before 
this change, J. P. C. was indicted and tried in Lump- 
kin Superior Court for the offense of interrupting and 
disturbing "a congi'egation of white persons, lawfully 
assembled for public worship." He was defended by 
Mr. Russell. There were two witnesses in the case, the 
Rev. Mr. Roberts, and the Hon. Eli Wehunt. The for- 
mer was a primitive, or "Hardshell" Baptist clergy- 
man. The crime was alleged to have been committed 
while he was preaching on a certain Sunday, at his own 



MEN AND THINGS 67 

house. It appeared from the evidence that Mr. Roberts' 
home was a combination of dwelling and still-house, 
and that the products of the still-house were stored in 
the smoke-house, located at some distance from where 
it was made. The preaching was in that part of the 
combination used as the dwelling. It did not appear 
what the theme of the discourse was. Whether it was a 
learned digging in search of the Greek roots of immer- 
sion, or of the decree before the foundation of the world, 
that foreordained whatsoever comes to pass, was left, 
by the testimony in the case, to conjecture. It was 
probably both. It did appear that Mr. Roberts and his 
neighbors had fine orchards and that the apple crop was 
abundant, and that it was a "pity" to allow the fruit to 
rot and waste. It further appeared that the neighbors 
frequently met at Mr. Roberts', especially on Simday 
(as it was a leisure day), though the visits were by no 
means confined to that day. It did not appear that any 
females attended that service. Nor did it appear 
whether the crowd of men met for the service, or 
whether the service was improvised because the crowd 
had assembled. Mr. Roberts, in his testimony, stated 
clearly and distinctly that neither he nor his congrega- 
tion were disturbed in the slightest degree. The Hon. 
Eli Weliunt, who, after the time of the trial, obtained 
the high honor of representing Lumpkiri County in the 
General Assembly of the State — a county that had been 
represented by such men as the Honorable W. P. 
Price and Honorable Weir Boyd — had been denied 
the advantage of an early education. Indeed, I 
am informed that he did not know a letter of the al- 



68 ME^^ AND THINGS 

phabet. He was of Dutcli descent, and of marked per- 
sonality. He was of medium height and size ; his eyes 
grey, and set far back; his cheek-bones high, and his 
forehead low ; his beard long and red, carefully divided 
in the middle, each haK neatly platted and skillfully 
tied into a knot under his chin. The color of his hair 
was immune from the power of description; the near- 
est approach to description is to say that it seemed to be 
a combination of pale claybank and Albino pink. There 
was nothing peculiar in his dress except that at the 
time of the trial, he wore a vest, made of spotted, tanned 
fawn-skin; and it was a picturesque garment. He tes- 
tified that while Mr. Roberts was preaching, on the 
Sunday in question, in his dwelling, he and defendant 
met behind the smoke-house, in which the brandy was 
stored — some distance from the dwelling — with no one 
but himself and the defendant present. The defendant 
abused him, and they had a private quarrel. With this 
evidence the State closed ; the defendant introduced 
none, and the court took a recess for dinner. Upon re- 
suming the bench after dinner, the judge said: "Gentle- 
men, proceed with the argument of this case. Mr. Rus- 
sell, state your points to the solicitor-general." Russell 
rose from his seat with some difficulty, and balancing 
and steadying himself as well as he could, responded to 
the judge's order as follows: "M-M-may it please your 
h-lionor, my point in the defense is that Eli Wehunt is 
not a congregation of wliite persons assembled for pub- 
lic worship." The verdict of the jury sustained the 
point. 

Almost every superior court has pending, a case that 



MEN AN D THINGS 69 

attracts more than ordinary public interest. This was 
true of a case in Gihner County, popularly known as: 
"The Granny King case." Mrs. King was a kind- 
hearted old lady, who practiced a profession that made 
her especially popular with the married ladies, in a 
thickly settled coimnunity, with a rapidly increasing 
birth-rate. Mr. and Mrs. King owned a plantation con- 
taining some very fine bottom land, on "Owlto^vn 
Creek." They had no children. Mr. King died. 
Most people have observed that it is not difficult to find 
those who desire the possession of what the late Judge 
Dawson A. \Yalker was accustomed to call "rich flat- 
land." It turned out to be true in this case. The Ahab 
who sought this vineyard was a collateral relative who 
resided in Dawson County, whose name was "Mont- 
gomery." He applied for letters of administration. 
Mrs. King resisted the application on the ground that 
she, as the widow, was entitled to it. Rice, Boyd and 
Smith represented Montgomery; James R. Brown and 
H. P. Bell represented the widow. Pending the con- 
troversy over the administration, Montgomery filed a 
bill in equity to recover the property. It turned out 
on the trial of the right to the administration, that 
Mrs. King had been previously married. She claimed 
to have been divorced, but could only show one verdict 
granting it. Montgomery won the administration. 
Mrs. King set up in her answer and cross bill, that her 
money, earned by her profession, paid for the land, that 
the deed was taken in his name, and that he held it as 
an implied, or resulting trust for her. On the trial, 
Boyd moved to dismiss his bill, to which counsel for 



70 MEN AND THINGS 

Mrs. King objected, on the ground that she had set up 
cross equities. In support of his motion, Boyd, among 
other things, said: "May it please your honor, we 
have met the gentlemen on the other side of this fight, 
and vanquished them on every field; and now, may it 
please your honor, when we want to retire across the 
"Amicalola mountain," and enjoy in peace our victory, 
the gentlemen won't let us." The motion was refused, 
the case tried, and Mrs. King won. Fannin, Union 
and Towns followed the circuit, closing with Towns. 
Boyd and Smith, returned home in the same buggy. 
After a long silence, Boyd suddenly said: "Bro. Smith, 
we have no cause to complain of our luck during this 
riding; we have lost but one case." "That is true, Bro. 
Boyd, but we have tried but one," replied Smith — the 
"Granny King case." 

It is as refreshing to a lawyer, as a fountain in a des- 
ert, to a caravan, to meet with a party in a case, who will 
"swear the truth to his own hurt." In an age distin- 
guished for its avarice, it is seldom a party in interest 
can be found who will not discolor the truth in favor of 
his interest. Occasionally, however, a rare exception 
to this general rule will occur. Such an instance took 
place in Fannin Superior Court. John A. Jervis, 
Esqr., sued John Brown, in ejectment, for the recovery 
of a lot of land. The defendant was an octogenarian — 
his hair white as snow, his rather small person slightly 
bent with age. The expression of his face placid and 
benevolent; he looked the very embodiment of peace 
and innocence. Jervis presented his evidence, showing 
his absolute right to recover. N"© counsel was marked 



M EN AN D THINGS 71 

or appeared for the defendant. Col. Wier Boyd, sit- 
ting by, seeing the situation, and humanely desiring to 
do a kindness to an aged, worthy, poor old man, or 
share with him in a division of the land in the event 
he recovered, or both, held a brief consultation with the 
defendant, said: "Your honor will please mark my 
name for the defendant;" administered the witness's 
oath to defendant and said to him: "Uncle Johnny, go 
on the stand," and proceeded to examine him as fol- 
lows : Coimsel : "Uncle Johnny, do you know the land 
sued for in this case?" Witness: "I do." Counsel: 
"Who is in possession of this land ?" Witness : "I am." 
Counsel: "How long have you been in possession?" 
Witness: "IsTine or ten years." Counsel: "What im- 
provements have you put on this lot?" Witness: "I 
built a cabin and cleared twelve or fifteen acres." 
Counsel: "Did anybody ever disturb your possession?" 
Witness: "ISTo, sir." Counsel: "You state. Uncle 
Johnny, that you have occupied this land without dis- 
turbance, continuously, for nine or ten years, built a 
house on it, and cleared twelve or fifteen acres of it, — 
all the time, claiming it as your own?" Witness: "I 
just went on the land and cleared, and built the house, 
and lived on it. I never claimed it. It is not my 
land." Counsel : "What ! Do you say that this is not 
your land ?" Witness : "Yes, sir ; I say that this land 
is not mine, I never claimed it. It belongs to the plain- 
tiff." Counsel: "Come down, Uncle Johnny." 

Charles Alston, of Towns County, was insulted, or 
supposed himself insulted, to an extent that, in his 
opinion, demanded blood in atonement. He therefore 



72 MEN AND THINGS 

challenged the offender. Whether the challenge re- 
sulted from the gravity of the offense, the homicidal 
impulse, supposed to be irresistible, in the constitutional 
organism of a certain class of the genus homo, or from 
hereditary chivalry (for he was a native South Caro- 
linian), was never satisfactorily ascertained. The 
grand jury of the county, less in sympathy with the 
punctillios of personal honor than the enforcement of 
criminal law, indicted him for an alleged violation 
thereof. This rude action of the grand jury amused 
the people of the community, but disgaisted the defend- 
ant. He employed Col. Weir Boyd to defend him. 
The case, from its novelty in this section of the State, 
created great interest in the public mind; and from its 
importance, w^eighed heavily upon the thought of his 
faithful counsel. After its continuance for several 
terms of the court, it was finally tried, resulting in the 
triumphant acquittal of the defendant, to the dispar- 
agement of the code penal, and to the honor of the 
code duello. After the adjournment of the court, at 
which the trial took place, Boyd and Marshall S. Smith 
were returning home in a buggy, together as usual, 
Boyd driving the regulation mule, and Smith in- 
tensely absorbed in an effort to untangle the knotty 
kinks in a skein of metaphysical abstrusities, 
and "Distinguish and divide a hair, 'twixt north and 
north-west side." Boyd said to him: "Brother Smith, 
what do you think of my speech in the Alston case? 
Smith replied : "Brother Boyd, it was a failure." Boyd 
said (with solemn emphasis) : "Brother Smith, I carried 
that speech too long, it soured." 



M JSzV AND THINGS 73 

Men do not always show wisdom in choosing an avo- 
cation. They sometimes disregard the advice of the 
Roman philosopher "to consult capacity and follow in- 
clination," and follow inclination without consulting 
capacity. This truth finds a signal illustration in two 
applications for admission to the bar. They were made 
at different times, but to the superior court of the same 
county. One of the applicants was an ignorant, pre- 
tentious, pedantic pedagogue. He was tall, of very 
dark complexion, and elaborately and gaudily dressed. 
When the court met in the morning for the examination, 
he arose, with a pompous, magisterial sort of movement. 
Having very much the appearance of a combined ad- 
vertisement of an animal and circus show, he addressed 
the court as follows: "May it please your honor, as I 
have recently been engaged in the very interesting study 
of philology, I ask the privilege of answering the ques- 
tions, in this examination, in a paraphrastic manner." 
The privilege was accorded. He answered the questions 
so very paraphrastically that the judge advised him to 
withdraw his application. C. W., the other applicant, 
had passed middle life by at least a decade. He had 
failed to realize his ambitious hopes for distinction in 
defeat, for numerous small offices which he sought. He 
had taught singing-school without discovering a bonanza 
in melody, but was not without power in politics, in his 
militia district, which was remote from the county 
courthouse. In stature, he was a little below medium 
size, in intellect, below mediocrity ; and in culture, still 
lower. His two upper front teeth were missing, and 
the color of his hair was of the clavbank variety. His 



74 MEN AND THINGS 

application was duly filed, and the order of court, ap- 
pointing the committee of examination, regularly 
passed, and entered on the minutes of court. The com- 
mittee met the applicant, G. L. conducting the examina- 
tion on Common Law. After asking, "What was law 
in general? What was civil law; what natural, and 
what revealed law was?" And various questions about 
rights — alienable and inalienable, absolute and rela- 
tive — all of which was Egyptian hieroglyphics to W., 
G. L. turned to the "economic or domestic relation, 
when the following occurred : G. L. : "Mr. W., how 
many kinds of persons are there in law ?" ]^o answer. 
G. L., explaining, stated, "there are two, natural and 
artificial." G. L. : "What are natural persons ?" No 
answer. G. L., explaining again : "]^atural persons are 
such as the God of nature formed ; you and I are natu- 
ral persons." G. L. : "AVhat is an artificial person ?" 
"A woman," promptly answered W. G. L. : "Mr. W., 
how many kinds of children are there in law ?" "Two," 
answered W. G. L. : "That is correct. ISTow, Mr. W., 
what are they ?" W. : "Boys and gals." He was ad- 
mitted, and a license certifying "that after examination 
he was found to be learned and well skilled in the knowl- 
edge of the law ; and authorized to practice in all the 
courts of law and equity in this State, except the Su- 
preme Court." Somehow litigants managed their busi- 
ness without his assistance. I never knew nor heard 
of his receiving a retainer, or appearing in a case. 
Young men may avoid breakers ahead by choosing 
a life-work with deliberation and decision and pursuing 
it with integrity and industry. 



CHAPTER X. 
Secession. 

The Secession Convention at Milledgeville, adjourned 
January 29th, to meet in Savannah upon the call of 
the president. On February 9th I reached Nashville, 
as Commissioner of Georgia to the State of Tennessee. 
That State, at an election, though recently held, had 
refused to call a convention to consider the grievances 
of which the Southern States complained, by a popular 
majority of ten thousand votes. 

The Legislature was not in session. The only means 
I, therefore had of official communication with the au- 
thorities was with the Governor of the State. That 
chivalric, patriotic, sterling statesman, Isham G. Har- 
ris, was governor. The Ordinance of Secession, together 
with the reasons for its adoption, were officially and 
formally presented to him in the executive office, and 
the co-operation of Tennessee, with the seceded States, 
in the formation of the Southern Confederacy, invited. 
Gov. Harris was in thorough and hearty sympathy with 
the movement, but surrounded with great obstacles. 
The people had refused to call a convention to consider 
the matter ; the legislature was not in session ; the 
border States peace conference was in session in Wash- 
ington, and a condition of apprehensive uncertainty and 
alarm reigned supreme. The Governor could only 

75 



76 MEN AND THINGS 

await the logic of events and conform his action to their 
results. 

While I was in Xashville, Gen. Leslie Combs, of 
Kentucky, addressed an immense concourse of people 
at night, in the public square. His speech was an elo- 
quent and impassioned appeal for the Union. Pend- 
ing its delivery, the mayor of the city read a fake tele- 
gram from Washington, stating that Lewis T. Wigfall, 
of Texas, had killed Andrew Johnson in a duel. The 
excitement of the multitude defies description. My re- 
port of this mission appears in the journal of the Con- 
vention. 

On my return from Xashville, I met at Chattanooga, 
Jefferson Davis, with his party, on his way to Mont- 
gomery to assume the presidency of the Confederacy. 
The crowds at the different railway stations to Atlanta 
were numerous and enthusiastic. Though the night 
was far advanced, at Dalton, upon the vociferous and 
continued demand of the crowd, he came out of the car, 
and made a short and thrilling speech. 

By proclamation of President G. W. Crawford, the 
Convention reassembled, on March 7th, at Savannah; 
and after ratifying the permanent constitution of the 
Confederate States, revising the constitution of the 
State, and the passage of such ordinances as were neces- 
sary to adjust tho State to its new relations and provide 
for such exigencies as the changed order of things might 
create, adjourned sine die, on March 23, 1861. 

There followed a restless, feverish state of the public 
mind. Secession orators and leaders assured the peo- 
ple "That we were in the midst of the most remarkable 



MEN AND THINGS 77 



revolution of history — remarkable because peaceful." 
The intuition of the common people taught them better. 
The coming event had "cast its shadow before." They 
had no doubt but that war would result, and were far 
from being a unit in favor of the policy of secession, 
until the fire upon Sumter, and the proclamation of 
President Lincoln calling for 75,000 men to suppress 
the insurrection, dispelled the peace delusion, and united 
the Southern people from "many as the billows, to 
one as the sea," in the defense of their firesides, their 
altars and their homes. 

Lincoln's proclamation determined the course of Vir- 
ginia and Tennessee; and they joined the Southern 
sisterhood. Robert E. Lee and Albert Sydney John- 
ston resig-ned their commissions in the United States 
Army, and tendered their stainless blades to the land of 
their nativity and allegiance. The latter was at San 
Francisco, Cal., at the time, and made his way in mid- 
summer, across the desert to Texas, the State of his 
adoption and his love. His escort was thirty brave 
young men (some of them army officers), who had 
formed the resolution to cast their fortunes with the 
South, without any knowledge of his purpose to do so. 
They were only too glad to be joined by such a com- 
rade. They ran the gauntlet of a cordon of Federal 
garrisons from Los Angeles to Fort Fillmore, infested 
with hostile Indians, robbers and marauders, under a 
temperature that was burning, and a thirst consuming, 
for a distance of fifteen hundred miles, moving mostly 
during the night, requiring six weeks time, and accom- 
plished the march without a serious mishap or adventure. 



78 MEN AND THING8 

The brave people of Kentucky, Missouri and Mary- 
land, writhing in the crucifixion of a conflict between 
the sentiments of love for the Union and hatred of op- 
pression, stood for the neutrality of their respective 
States until the policy and power of the Federal Gov- 
ernment bound them in the chains of slavery and tram- 
pled them in the dust and blood of despotism, and se- 
cured from the border States two hundred and fifty 
thousand of the best troops in the Union Army. It 
was then too late to correct the mistake. The States 
of Kentucky and Missouri then had democratic admin- 
istrations, and if these great States had united with the 
Confederacy at the beginning, the final result might, 
and probably would, have been different. 

The promptness with which Maj. Anderson surren- 
dered Fort Sumter, intensified the enthusiasm of the 
excitable and impulsive, and increased the delusion that 
the conflict would be short and successful. Among the 
young men, especially, there was a restless rush to enter 
the military service. The unreflecting esteemed it a 
sort of holiday recreation, and hungered and thirsted 
for the excitement of the fray. People of thoughtful- 
ness, familiar with history, and who understood the 
character of the American people, knew better. It is 
due to this class of young men who entered the service 
early, unburdened with families and business obliga- 
tions and relations, to say that they developed into the 
finest soldiers the world over saw. Trained by disci- 
pline to subordination, thrilled by the impulse of an 
ardent patriotism, led by soldiers like Robert E. 
Lee, Albert Sydney Johnston, Stonewall Jackson and 



MEN AND THINGS 79 

Bedford jST. Forrest, they were invincible to any antago- 
nist but death. The author joined the first company 
of volunteers raised in the county of Forsyth, but a 
large mass-meeting of the people requested him, by reso- 
lution — unanimously adopted — to withdraw from the 
company and remain at home for the present, to aid 
in raising troops and in making provision for the fami- 
lies of such as might need assistance, with which reso- 
lution he complied. 

The battle of Manassas, July 21, 1861, was a brilliant 
triumph of the Confederates and gratifying to South- 
ern pride and complimentary to valor; but it 
increased the delusion under which the Southern 
people labored as to the continuance and result 
of the war. The masses of them knew nothing 
of Gen. Scott's plan to overwhelm the Confederacy with 
three grand armies, one to move against Richmond, 
another down the Mississippi River, and the third to 
bisect the Confederacy diagonally from Louisville via 
the L. & X. railway to the sea. Nor did they know 
of the vast efforts and resources employed for the 
organization and equipment of these immense armies ; 
nor were they fully aroused to a sense of their danger 
until the disaster of Forts Henry and Donelson ; and 
the retreat of Albert Sydney Johnston from Bowling 
Green, to the south bank of the Tennessee River, brought 
them to a realization of their peril. 

The year 1861 was fruitful in local strife in the bor- 
der States, and elaborate preparation for the fearful 
struggle to follow, Tn October I was elected to the 
Senate. This was the first general election under the 



80 MEN AND THINGS 

revised constitution, bv which the Senators were reduced 
to fortj-folir in number. The counties of Cherokee, 
Forsyth and Milton formed the thirty-ninth district. 
The Legislature met in Xovember. It was the first 
General Assembly after the secession of the States, and 
the formation of the Confederacy. All classes, profes- 
sions and avocations in the State were represented by 
typical men — men of high personal character, eminent 
ability and unselfish patriotism. Warren Akin was 
elected speaker of the House of Eepresentatives. On 
its roll of members appears the names Elbridge G. Caba- 
niss, Thos. M. ]^orwood, George Is". Lester, Thomas G. 
Lawson, George T. Barnes, Osborne L. Smith, Milton 
A. Candler and many others of merit and ability. The 
Senate was organized by the election of that accom- 
plished and scholarly gentleman, John Billups, presi- 
dent, and James M. Mobley, secretary. The agricul- 
turalists had superb representatives in the Senate in 
Wm. M. Bro^ra, Wm. M. Hill, Timothy Furlow, Kich- 
ard Lane and Samuel Y. Jamison ; the bar in James 
L. Seward, Miles W. Lewis, William Gibson, George 
Gordon, A. J. Hansell, James P. Simmons, Samuel D. 
Killen and Weir Boyd ; medicine in Drs. Winn and 
Beasley; and scholarship in Joseph H. Echols. The 
Senate was a body of very able and patriotic men, ani- 
mated with the single purpose of faithfully discharging 
their duty to the State, in the hour of existing and im- 
pending national calamity. They were distinguished 
for their ability and moderation, their wisdom and pa- 
triotism, their courtesy in official and social relations, 
their viffor and fairness in debate, and unselfish devo- 



MEN AND THINGS 81 

tion to the public interest. This Legislature sought, as 
far as possible, to husband the resources of the State, 
mitigate the burdens of her people, and strengthen the 
arm of the Confederate government. 

So far as he is informed, the writer is the only sur- 
vivor of that body of patriotic public servants. The 
personal friendship and delightful association with 
these Senators has always been and continues to be, a 
most pleasant memory to liim. 



CHAPTER XI. 
In The Wae. 

The picnic phase of the war passed with the year 
1861. 

The following year opened, with the conviction uni- 
versally prevailing, that it would be protracted, stubborn 
and bloody. The call of the government for more troops 
was urgent; and in response thereto, the Governor of 
Georgia issued his order for twelve regiments of volun- 
teers, to serve for three years, or during the war. Henry 
C. Kellogg raised one company of 100 men and the 
writer another of an equal number in Forsyth County. 
These companies repaired to Camp McDonald early in 
March, 1862, for organization into regiments. These 
two — "E" and "I" — Captains, Kellogg and Bell; two 
from Cherokee— "A" and "B"— Captains, Mullin and 
Grantham; two from Jackson — "G" and "H" — Cap- 
tains, Story and Howard; two from Hall — "F" and 
"H" — Captains, Law and Reeves; one from Pickens — 
"C" — Captain, Harris, and one from Banks — "D" — 
Captain, Ragsdale, were formed into the Forty-third 
Regiment of Georgia Volunteers. The field officers 
elected to command it were : Skidmore Harris, Colonel ; 
H. P. Bell, Lieutenant-Colonel, and Henry C. Kellogg, 
Major. Early in April the regiment was ordered to 
Chattanooga, where it soon entered upon the usual 

82 



MEN AND THINGS 83 

experience of raw recruits — in sickness, superin- 
duced by the change of the habits and comforts 
of home-life, to the exposure, privation and duties 
of life in the camp. Measles, flux, dysentery and 
brain fever attacked the troops; some died and nearly 
all, were more or less, sick. In this condition of 
affairs, Brigadier-General Ledbetter, who was command- 
ing at Chattanooga, was ordered to Bridgeport to defend 
the railroad bridge against General Mitchell, who, with 
a column, six thousand strong, from Buell's army, was 
advancing to seize it. General Ledbetter gathered all of 
his soldiers that were able to move, not exceeding 500 in 
number, crossed the river and formed his line of battle 
on the west bank, sending out scouts under Lieutenanc 
Rheinheart to ascertain and report the movements of the 
enemy. Starnes' cavalry reported that the enemy was 
rapidly approaching in forces. Convinced of his in- 
ability to resist it, General Ledbetter ordered his troops 
to fall back across the river, which they did in order. 
Their camp equipage, knapsacks, etc., were placed on a 
hand-car to run over the bridge. After all had crossed 
except those in charge of the hand-car, and General Led- 
better, Lieutenant-Colonel Jackson and the writer, who 
were awaiting the return of the scouts, the enemy's bat- 
tery opened fire on us from the top of the hill, with a 
storm of grape and canister. Rheinheart had been 
wounded and he and his scouts captured. We walked 
across the bridge in a tempest of balls and splinters from 
the battery, not 400 yards distant, without being struck. 
It was not a comfortable experience. The hand-car was 
behind us, near the middle of the river. It struck me 



84 MEN AND THINGS 

and knocked me from the plank, upon which I was 
walking, and but for the accident of falling diagonally 
across the bridge-timbers I would have gone to the bot- 
tom of the river. This episode added nothing to the 
comfort of the occasion. Just as the hand-car reached 
the end of the bridge it ran over a soldier and cut off, 
entirely, both of his lower limbs at the trunk, and the 
poor fellow was wallowing in his blood and gasping in 
the agonies of a horrible death. 

The bridge was blown up and the advance of the 
enemy, by that means, arrested. This was my introduc- 
tion "to the pomp and glorious circumstance of war." 

When I entered the army, with the opinion enter- 
tained of the magnitude and duration of the war, I did 
not cherish the slightest hope of escaping death. In 
middle life, without military training or predilection, 
and honored with command, my only resource was to 
obey orders, do my duty and perish rather than soil the 
escutcheon of my wife and children with the stain of 
cowardice. This I resolved to do, and never faltered in 
keeping this resolution. The first test came at Bridge- 
port. I was in .command of the regiment, but so sick 
that I could scarcely stand on my feet, but I did stand 
all day, though in agony, and without complaint. When 
a field officer pleads sick, in the hour of danger, the bur- 
den of proof is upon him. The result of this affair was 
an attack of fever that kept me in bed for three months, 
with the balance quivering in uncertainty most of the 
time. I rejoined the regiment the last of July, still 
feeble, in East Tennessee, near Morristown. 

The regiment, then in Reynolds' brigade, was or- 



MEN AND THINGS 85 

dered to Cumberland Gap, then strongly fortified, and 
occupied by the Federals under Gen. Morgan. There 
was a fight with the Federals, under DeCoursey, at 
Tazewell, resulting in DeCoursey's defeat, and his with- 
drawal and return to the gap. Nothing of interest oc- 
curred except occasional firing between the pickets and 
foraging parties of the hostile forces, until the last of 
August, when, in conjunction with Bragg's invasion 
of Kentucky, Kirby Smith's column crossed the Cum- 
berland Mountains at Rogers' Gap and the Federals 
evacuated their stronghold and fell back toward the 
Ohio. Smith had a sharp engagement early in 
September with ISTelson at Richmond, in which 
he won a brilliant triumph over superior num- 
bers, capturing many prisoners and a large amount 
of arms, etc., and completely routed the Federal forces. 
Bragg captured Mumsfordsville, moving in the di- 
rection of Louisville; Smith moved to Lexing- 
ton. We were then in the far-famed "Blue grass re- 
gion of Kentucky," The counties of Fayette, Bour- 
bon, Madison, Scott, Jessamine and Harrison form the 
most beautiful country I ever beheld. Its broad, ma- 
cadamized pikes, its palatial homes, its baronial farms, 
its expansive fields of blue grass, with their fat, slick, 
grazing herds ; its beautiful forests of walnut, beach, 
maple and elms, touched with the first tints of autumn 
— all conspired to heighten its charms. But I con- 
fess to being absorbed in other thoughts. We were in 
the birthland of Lincoln and Davis, among a people, the 
valor of whose forefathers, at Broadaxe, Wisconsin 
Heights, Tippecanoe, Thames, ISTew Orleans, Buena 



86 MEN AND THINGS 

Vista, Cerro Gordo, Cherubusco, Chapultepec and Mo- 
lino del Key, had shed the light of imperishable glory 
upon the chivalry of Kentuckians and the history of 
Kentucky — a State whose glorious history is illus- 
trated with a long list of illustrious jurists, ora- 
tors, statesmen, heroes and poets — with her Clays 
and Crittendens, her Marshalls and Breckenridges, 
her Prestons and Johnsons, her Prentices, War- 
fields and Welbys — a glorious list of names that eclipse 
the proudest that emblazon the escutcheon of ISTorman 
heraldry. A land whose men are brave as Csesar, and 
whose women, more beautiful than "the star-eyed Sor- 
ceress of the Xile," was now hopelessly divided, and 
trampling the flowers of this Eden in the blood of civil 
strife and fratricidal slaughter. 

Smith advanced to Covington, causing consternation 
in Cincinnati. I established and commanded the Con- 
federate picket line in front of Covington. 

The result of this campaign was the evacuation of 
ISTashville and Cumberland Gap by the Federals, the 
inauguration of Ilawes, Governor at Frankfort, the 
capture of Mumsfordsville by Bragg, the victory of 
Smith over I^elson, at Richmond, and the bloody battle 
of Perrysalle. This battle was fought by Bragg after 
the Confederate retreat and Federal pursuit began. 
The Confederates captured a large number of prisoners 
and arms, besides securing and sending out a vast 
amount of commissary stores. Bragg returned to Mur- 
freesboro; Smith, to Knoxville, and the Federal army 
to ISTashville. T resigned my seat in the Senate, at 
Georgeto\^^l, Ky., in September, 1862, in time to elect 



MEN AND THINGS 87 



a successor before the meeting of the General Assembly. 
Hon. James K. Brown was elected to fill the vacancy. 
I shall never cease to cherish kind and tender memories 
of the hospitality of Kentucky Confederates. Riding 
along a street in Lexington, literally covered with dust, 
a beautiful woman came out of a handsome cottage, to 
the gate, and asked me to alight, '^Come in and have 
breakfast." The want of harmony between her ap- 
pearance and mine induced me to make an effort to ex- 
cuse myself, which proved unavailing. I went in, and 
met the hospitality of a sparkling julep and a delight- 
ful breakfast, dispensed with the charming grace, dig- 
nity and elegance for which the sex is distinguished. 
I felt something of the sentiment which, I suppose 
thrilled the heart of the Indian when he discovered the 
Alabama, and christened it into the name of "Here we 
rest." J^ear Paris, I was attacked violently with bil- 
ious fever. I was taken to the elegant home of Frank 
Ford, who, with his good wife, gave me special atten- 
tion and tender nursing for eight or ten days; at the 
same time keeping up with the movements of the op- 
posing forces, with the view of preventing my capture. 
Finally he informed me that the movements of Wool- 
ford's cavalry made it vital to me to leave. He put 
me into his buggy and drove me, in the night, a distance 
of twenty miles, to Lexington, with a negro boy to ride 
a horse which he had given to me. I found at the hotel 
a member of Bragg's staff, sick, and much exercised for 
his safety. The next afternoon T left Lexington in the 
direction of Xicholasville, on horseback. After pro- 
ceeding five or six miles I broke down and could pro- 



88 MEN AND THINGS 

ceed no further. I stopped at the home of Elijah 
Bryan and remained here more than a week. Mr. 
Bryan had another guest, in the person of a pale, sick, 
slender youth, who belonged to Churchill's Brigade. 
He had been in the battle at Kichmond. His age, size 
and condition, with his intelligence, coolness and cour- 
age, impressed me greatly. 

The retreat of the Confederates was a severe blow to 
Southern sympathizers. As the Federals fell back and 
the Confederates advanced, they hoped the war would 
be transferred across the Ohio. They were jubilant at 
the coming, and in tears at the departure of the Con- 
federate army. It was to them unexpected and dis- 
appointing. Everybody was on the qui vive for news. 
All sorts of rumors were flying in every direction as to 
the movements of the troops of the respective armies. 
Under the observation and information of Mr. Bryan, 
I finally ascertained the location and movement of my 
command, and convinced that if I escaped capture, no 
time must be lost, I determined to make the effort to 
rejoin it. Mr. Bryan repeated precisely the kindness 
of Mr. Ford, by putting a negro boy on my horse, and 
taking me in his buggy, delivered both at the bridge 
across the Kentucky Eiver just as it was being set on 
fire by order of the Confederates. With a grateful 
heart I bade my friend "good-bye," mounted my horse 
and was the last to cross the bridge. I held up better 
than I expected that day, and stopped at a comfortable 
Kentucky home, where I had some rest. I awoke in 
the morning to find that someone, during the night, had 
swapped horses with me. M\ horse (the present from 



ME2i AND THINGS 89 

Mr. Ford), was large, fat and able. In his place I 
found a very thin colt, utterly broken down, with a 
horribly sore back, and so weak that it staggered in 
walking. The only thing to be done was to take the 
chances with the colt. So, shortening my saddle-girth 
a few feet and putting on the saddle, I mounted the 
crippled colt, to escape the Federal army. When I 
reached the command and removed the saddle, the colt 
tumbled down, where it was left when the camp moved. 
The comforts of that day's travel were not promoted by 
the kind ( ?) assurance of everyone I passed, or met, 
that "I was gone up," that the "Yankees will get you." 
With my facilities for movement, it was a little tanta- 
lizing to be constantly advised as I was, to "hurry up." 
After resting a few days at Lenoir's Station, we were 
ordered to Eeadysville, and thence, on December 19th, 
took the train at Tullahoma for Vicksburg, where we 
arrived on the evening of December 27th, and marched 
from the train, into line of battle, at Chickasaw Bayou, 
where the fight was in progress. I was in command of 
the regiment. The troops on that part of the line all 
next day (Sunday), were under constant fire of shells 
and sharpshooters.— About sun-up, I was ordered to 
change the position of the regiment, and while moving 
to the new position, was shot by a sharpshooter. I was 
carried to the rear, and at night removed to the hospital 
in Vicksburg. 

Singular coincidences often occur. Maj. Humble, 
of Louisiana, was shot in the knee; Lt.-Col. Timmons, 
of Texas, in the ankle, and I in the leg, equidistant 
from the knee and ankle, on the same day, and met at 



90 MEN AND THINGS 

the hospital at night. Maj. Humble died that night. 
Lt.-Col. Timmons and I were removed to a private 
house in the suburbs of the city, and placed in the same 
room. His foot was amputated and he died. The ball 
that hit me, ranged between the two bones of the limb, 
lodging in the knee-joint, destroying the periosteum, 
caries of the bone succeeded, and gangTene in its most 
malignant type, supervened, defying arrest by the sur- 
geons. The sloughing progressed with a rapidity and 
to an extent that was startling. Half a dozen army 
surgeons, upon consultation, adjudged the case hope- 
less, and so informed my wife by telegram. My host- 
ess, Mrs. Eberline, told the doctors that pulverized loaf- 
sugar would arrest the sloughing, which of course, they 
ridiculed. But when they surrendered the case as 
hopeless, they told her she could try her sugar. She 
pulverized a plateful, sifted it through a muslin cloth, 
and applied it to the wound. I never had any idea of 
the intensity of agony until then ; the only way to con- 
ceive of it was to feel it. The third application en- 
tirely arrested the sloughing, and within two or three 
days the wound, which was a large and ghastly one, 
began a healthy granulation. It turned out that Mrs. 
Eberline was one of those inspired geniuses in the dis- 
covery of simple remedies for emergent ailments with 
which we sometimes, though rarely, meet. That she 
was the human agent that saved my life, I have never 
entertained the slightest doubt. T have been thus par- 
ticular in recording in detail, what may seem to others 
a very small matter, in the hope that sometime, some- 
where, the facts may be of value to somebody. On 



MEN AND THINGS 91 

March 8, 1863, occupying a litter, I was placed on the 
train, under the care of that true soldier and faithful 
friend, M. H. Eakes, now a useful member of the 
Xorth Georgia Conference of the M. E. Church, South, 
and reached home a week later. During the year, with 
two exceptions, capture and death, I had passed through 
all the vicissitudes and experience of soldier-life, of 
hunger and thirst, heat and cold, dust and mud, weary 
marches and sleepless bivouacs, sickness and wounds; 
and perhaps had suffered more, and done less, than any 
soldier in the Confederate service. Col. Harris was 
killed at Bakers' Creek. I was promoted to the Colo- 
nelcy and resigned. Kellogg was promoted, and was 
wounded at 'New Hope; but, with Joseph E. Johnson, 
surrendered the shattered remnant of the Forty-third 
Georgia Volunteers at Greensboro, INT. C, in 1865. 
Frank Simmons concealed the regimental flag, and 
brought it home. He concealed it by wrapping it 
around his person, under his shirt. Its tattered frag- 
ments are now with the Archives of the Regimental As- 
sociation. 



CHAPTER XIL 

Second Confedekate Congress. 

In October, 1863, I was elected representative from 
the ninth district, to the second Congress of the Con- 
federate States. The Congress met in Richmond in 
December. The House of Representatives was com- 
posed of the following gentlemen, from: 

Alabama — Thomas J. Foster, William R. Smith, M. 
H. Criiickshank, David Clopton, F. S. Lyon, W. P. 
Chilton, James L, Pugh, James S. Dickinson. 

Arkansas — Felix I. Batson, Rufus K. Garland, T. 
B. Handley, Augustus H. Garland. 

Florida — S. St.George Rogers, R. B. Hilton. 

Georgia — Julian Hartridge, W. E. Smith, M. H. 
Blandford, Clifford Anderson, John T. Shewmake, Jos. 
H. Echols, James M. Smith, George N. Lester, Hiram 
P. Bell, Warren Akin. 

Kentucky — W. B. Machen, George W. Triplett, 
Henry E. Read, George W. Ewing, James S. Chris- 
man, H. W. Bruce, Humphry Marshall, E. M. Bruce, 
James W. Moore, B. F. Bradley, John M. Elliott. 

Louisiana — Charles J. Viller, Charles M. Conrad, 
Duncan F. Kenner, L. J. Dupree, John Perkins, Jr. 

Mississippi — J. A. Orr, W. D. Holder, Israel Welch, 
H. C. Chambers, O. R. Singleton, E. Barksdale, John 
T. Lampkin. 

92 



MEN AND THINGS 93 

Missouri — Thomas L. Sneed, N. T. Xorton, John 
B. Clark, A. H. Conrow, G. G. Vest, P. S. Wilks, R. 

A. Hatcher. 

North Carolina — W. jST. H. Smith, R. R. Bridges, 
James T. Leach, Thomas C. Fuller, Josiah Turner, 
John A. Gilmer, James M. Leach, James G. Ramsay, 

B. S. Gaither, George W. Logan. 

South Carolina — James H. Witherspoon, Wm. 
Porcher Miles, L. M. Ayer, W. D. Simpson, James Far- 
row, W. W. Boyce. 

Tennessee — J. B, Heiskell, W. G. Swan, A. S. 
Colyar, J. P. Murray, H. S. Foote, E. A. Keeble, Jas. 
McCallam, Thomas Menees, J. D. C. Atkins, John V. 
Wright, M. W. Clusky. 

Texas— S. M. Darden, C. C. Herbert, A. M. Branch, 
F. B. Sexton, John R. Baylor, S. H. Morgan. 

Virginia— R. L. Montague, R. H. Whitfield, W. C. 
Wickham, Thomas Gholson, Thomas S. Bocock, John 
T. Goode, Jr., W. C. Rives, D. C. DeJannette, D. Fun- 
sten, T. W. M. Holliday, John B. Baldwin, W. R. 
Staples, S. A. Miller, Robt. Johnston, C. W. Russell. 

DELEGATES FROM THE TERRITORIES. 

Arizona Territory — M. H. McWillie, Cherokee 
Nation; E. C. Bowdinot, Choctaw Nation; R. M. 
Jones, Creek and Seminole Nations ; S. B. Callahan. 

Thomas S. Bocock, of Virginia, was elected speaker, 
and A. R. Lamar, of Georgia, clerk. 

The First Congress imder the permanent Confeder- 
ate Government had been in session often during its 



94 ME IS! AND THINGS 

term, and had made provision by law for the use of 
all our men and means in supporting the prosecution 
of the war. That body had enacted the Conscript law, 
which placed every able-bodied man and boy between 
the ages of eighteen and forty-five, in the Confederacy 
(except in the border States), and established the Con- 
stript Bureau, charged with the duty of their enroll- 
ment in the military service of the Government. It 
had imposed enormous taxes upon the people, including 
a heavy tax in kind ; in a word — it had reaped the field 
of resources and but little to glean, by the Second Con- 
gress, had been left. Up to July, 1863 — in the lan- 
guage of the French Minister, M. Douyrs de I'Hays, the 
"strusffle seemed to be balanced" with the scales in- 
dining in favor of the Confederacy. But upon the re- 
sult of the battle of Gettysburg and the siege of Vicks- 
burg, "gravitation, shifting, turned the other way" and 
with separation from the trans-Mississippi portion of 
the Confederacy, by the Federal control of the river, 
and the loss of supplies drawn therefrom; for that 
reason, the fortunes of the Confederacy had something 
of the appearance of desperation. The proposition of 
France to the English and Russian Governments, to 
unite with her in an effort to secure an armistice, with 
the view of myolitions for peace, had been declined. 
Foreign governments recognized under their interpre- 
tation of International Law, the sufficiency of the block- 
ade of Confederate ports. The neutrality of these gov- 
ernments prevented our privateers from entering their 
ports with their captures for adjudication as prizes; 
and therefore, they had to be burned or sunk, at sea 



MEN AND THINGS 95 

The railroads were worn out and transportation crip- 
pled. The constant withdrawal of labor from the 
farms was diminishing the production of supplies; 
great numbers of so-called ''homeguards," and "details" 
were scouring the country in search of conscripts and 
deserters. Trusted leaders like Johnson, Jackson, Polk 
and a host of others of inferior rank, but equal courage, 
like Ashbv, Morgan, Barksdale, Cleburne and hundreds 
of others, had fallen. The women and such children 
as were large enough to aid them, were making a most 
heroic struggle to keep the wolf away. The State gov- 
ernments, as fast and as much as they could, were dol- 
ing out pittances of corn, flour and cotton-cards to aid 
them in tlie fearful effort for food and clothing. The 
men who had passed middle life and raised families, 
who were accustomed to peaceful pursuits of agricul- 
ture, and the enjoyment of domestic life, without mili- 
tary aptitude or ambition, were unfit for soldiers. Sol- 
diers are made as well as born, and more made than 
born soldiers. The city of Richmond was practically 
beleagurered by an army of overwhelming numbers am- 
ply equipped, bountifully supplied, and ably com- 
manded. It was defended by a force wholly inadequate 
in numbers, badly clothed and poorly fed. Judge Geo. 
IS". Lester and myself called on a certain Simday, to see 
our friends in the trenches, around the city. The late 
Judge X. L. Hutchins, Jr., the Colonel commanding a 
battalion of sharpshooters, invited us to dinner. The 
spread consisted of thin, gi'een, sour sorghum syrup and 
coarse corn bread. This was no fault of the Govern- 
ment, nor its ofilcials. It was the misfortune of our 



96 MEN AND THINGS 

situation. The government exhausted all of its powers 
and resources, in the effort to provide for the necessi- 
ties and comforts of its heroic defenders, yet these brave 
men stood by their flag and defended their convictions 
with a valor never surpassed, under the leadership of a 
General without an equal. It was under these condi- 
tions and surroundings that the Second Confederate 
Congress met, transacted the public business, and wit- 
nessed the dying agonies of a Government, instituted 
to preserve and perpetuate the inalienable right of civil 
self-government. 

It is interesting to consider the military operations 
around the city of Richmond, while CongTess was in 
session. In the latter part of the winter, and early 
portion of the spring, Grant and Lee were confronting 
each other, north of Richmond. The former, with an 
army of 141,160 troops and an available reserve of 
137,602. The force of the latter numbered 50,000, 
with no reserves. The campaign was opened by a 
movement of Kilpatrick, Custer and Dalgreen to cut 
Lee's communication with Richmond, and by a sudden 
dash, release the Federal prisoners, assassinate Presi- 
dent Davis, and his Cabinet, and sack and burn the 
city. Dalgreen was met by the War and Treasury De- 
partment Clerks and volimteer citizens, not liable to 
military duty, at the outer defenses of the city, and re- 
pulsed with considerable loss — he being among the 
killed. Custer retreated, burning the bridges behind 
him; Sheridan, with 8,000 tropps, was approaching 
when Stewart gathered up a force of 7,100 men, ha- 
rassed his rear, and by a detour, and forced marches, 



MEN AND THINGS 97 

flanked him and appeared in his front at "Yellow Tav- 
ern," six miles from Richmond, where, being reinforced 
by the department clerks, he was engaged and repulsed. 
The brave Stewart, at the head of his column, with everv 
chamber of his pistol empty, fell, mortally wounded. 
On May 1st, Gen. Butler arrived at Bermuda Hundred. 

On May 3rd, Grant and Lee fought the great battle 
of the "Wilderness," which continued for three days. 
The United States forces being driven back. Grant 
withdrew and swung around to Spottsylvania Court- 
house, where Lee promptly met him, and the fight was 
renewed and the field made historic by a baptism of 
blood. The armies confronting and fighting almost 
daily, moved in the direction of Richmond until they 
met in the terrible death grapple of slaughter and blood 
at Cold Harbor. I shall never forget the feelings I 
experienced while standing on Capitol Hill, in Rich- 
mond, listening at the guns sounding the death knell of 
the Confederacy. 

While these environments were not favorable to calm 
and deliberate legislation, the Congress was undismayed 
end entered in a business-like way, upon the dis- 
charge of its duties. In fact, its duties were few and 
simple — only to provide for the increase of the array 
and its support, and for these purposes there were no 
means or resources of men, money or supplies to be ob- 
tained. The only thing that could be done, therefore, 
was to go through the form of legislatiop. This, Con- 
gress proceeded to do. The questions of leading inter- 
est, discussed and considered, were the increase of taxa- 
tion, the extension of conscription, the suspension of 



98 MEN AND THINGS 

the writ of Habeas Corpus, the employment of negroes 
in the ranks, and the appointment of a Peace Commis- 
sion. 

It must be remembered that the men in the trenches 
had families at home, struggling against starvation. 
When the tax bill was imder consideration, I submitted 
an amendment exempting the products of the garden, 
orchard and dairy, when used for the support of the 
family, and not for sale. Hon. Charles M. Conrad — 
not distinguished for comeliness of person, who wore a 
wig of rather long, faded hair, of nondescript color — by 
way of ridicule, proposed to amend my amendment by 
adding "butter and eggs." Another statesman, who had 
been imbibing freely (it was in night session), moved to 
add "bees-wax and tallow." Quite a ripple of amuse- 
ment passed through the House, at my expense. AVhen 
it subsided, I arose and spoke as follows : 

Mr. Speaker: "I accept both amendments, for the 
reason that they extend the aid which my amendment 
is designed to give to the toiling women and children 
of the country, to prevent their starvation. I appre- 
hend that their gallant husbands and fathers in the 
trenches around this beleaguered capitol, upon whom 
we depend for our personal safety, will not appreciate 
the statesmanship that would deride by ridicule, aii 
effort to help those dearer to their hearts than the blood 
they so freely give for our protection. E"or will their 
respect be increased for the wisdom and gravity of legis- 
lators who can derive amusement from such derision. 
I confess my surprise at this feeble effort at wit, com- 
ing from the gentleman from Louisiana. He is a sort 



MEN AND THINGS 99 

of favorite with me. I was charmed by his appearance 
the first time I saw him. Indeed, I had come to the 
conclusion to beg of him the favor of a lock of his beau- 
tiful hair, to keep as a souvenir of both his exalted 
statesmanship and his personal pulchritude." 

After thoroughly discussing the bills to increase taxa- 
tion and extend conscription, wnth the certainty that 
neither could be done, Congress passed them both. The 
first law provided for the enrollment of those between 
the ages of eighteen and forty-five years. The new law 
included those between seventeen and fifty years of age. 
While the chairman of the committee on military af- 
fairs, Hon. W. P. Miles, was discussing the conscript 
bill with regard to including ministers of the Gospel, 
a member asked him the question "did not St. Paul 
labor ? Was he not a tent maker ?" to which, in much 
confusion, he replied, "I will say to the gentleman, that 
I can not answer his questions at present, as I am not 
fresh from the authorities upon the subject." Perhaps 
the ablest discussion of the Congress was that upon 
the suspension of the writ of Habeas Corpus. It was 
not suspended. The question of enlisting the negroes 
into the ranks as soldiers was long disputed, and the 
bill for that purpose finally passed. Grant had said 
that the Confederacy had "robbed the cradle and the 
grave" to recruit its armies, and had calculated on suc- 
cess with mathematical certainty on the basis that when 
the last Confederate soldier was dead, the United States 
would still have an army left. The argument was that 
they could not conquer the Confederates, but that by 
holding on long enough, they could destroy them. And 



100 MEN AND THINGS 

it was for this reason that the United States Govern- 
ment, under Grant's advice, refused to exchange pris- 
oners. Every Confederate held in prison was equiva- 
lent to a dead soldier. The Confederacy had put its 
last man into the field. The Union had an army that 
quadrupled its numbers, already in the field, with large 
resources of men at home ; and the world from which to 
recruit its depleted ranks, with agents abroad actively 
engaged in enlisting mercenaries. The United States 
Government, therefore, cruelly allowed thousands of 
brave men on both sides to suffer, languish, and die in 
prison, rather than exchange them, in conformity to 
the usage of civilized warfare. To put the negroes 
into the ranks in sufficient numbers to do any good 
would have soon diminished the production of supplies 
to the starvation point. If they had the capability of 
becoming soldiers, the time required for their organi- 
zation and training, made their employment too late. 
The Confederacy was rapidly tottering to its fall. 

The members of the House of Representatives were, 
in the main, able men. There was among them a small 
class of impulsive, enthusiastic optimists, inclined to 
radicalism. There was another class of wise, practi- 
cal, conservative men, who knew that it required men 
and money to prosecute successful war ; and that the 
Confederacy had neither. This class clearly saw that 
the end was near. Anxious to save whatever could be 
secured, from the final wreck, and make a last desper- 
ate effort to accomplish that object, they favored an ef- 
fort at negotiation, the appointment of a commis- 
sion to the Government of the United States, to 



MEN AND THINGS 101 

ascertain upon what terms peace could be made and the 
war ended. Four men, Adkins, of Tenn., Echols, Les- 
ter and Bell, of Ga., were quietly active and prominent 
in originating this movement. It was soon discovered 
that many members favored it. 

In the meantime, Francis P. Blair appeared in 
Richmond from Washington, upon what was under- 
stood or conjectured to be, a sort of unofficial peace 
mission. The sentiment in favor of an effort at nego- 
tiation grew rapidly. A meeting was held at the 
"Ballard House," over which Hon. W. A. Graham, 
Senator from J^orth Carolina, presided. At this meet- 
ing, after full consideration, it was resolved to intro- 
duce and press the passage in the House of Representa- 
tives a resolution authorizing and requesting the Presi- 
dent to appoint a commission for that purpose. The 
morning after the meeting the Richmond Sentinel came 
out in an article with the sensational head-lines : "Trea- 
son! Treason!" bitterly denouncing the meeting as a 
traitorous conspiracy against the Confederacy. 

When President Davis was informed of this move- 
ment, he stated promptly and frankly that if it was 
thought best, he would appoint the commission at once, 
without awaiting the action of Congress. He had an 
interview with the vice-president upon the subject, in 
which it was determined to appoint the commission. 
The President asked Mr. Stephens to suggest a com- 
missioner; he named Judge Campbell. The President 
then named Senator Hunter and asked Mr. Stephens to 
be a member of it, to which he agreed. And the 
Hampton Roads Commission was raised. 



102 MEN AND THINGS 

It was a bright Sunday morning when the commis- 
sioners left Richmond to meet the United States Com- 
mission, upon this high embassy. The result of the 
meeting is history. When the Confederacy embarked 
on her career, one of her first acts was the dispatch of 
commissioners to the United States Government at 
Washington, to settle all matters of controversy peace- 
ably by negotiation. They were rejected. In the 
final catastrophe she went down with the olive branch 
held out to her foes. Surely she is exempt from re- 
sponsibility for the bloodshed and slaughter which nego- 
tiation might have avoided. 

The friends of this movement, to secure peace, had 
but little hope of success, but they felt better after ex- 
hausting their last effort in that direction. The failure 
seemed to intensify the determination to die in the last 
ditch. Mr. Davis made a stirring speech to a large 
crowd in the African Church. Dr. James A. Duncan, 
the eloquent pastor of the Broad Street Methodist 
Church, preached a masterful sermon, from the text: 
"The Sword of the Lord and Gideon" intended to 
strengthen the spirit of resistance, and rekindle the 
light of dying hope. But great speeches and eloquent 
sermons can not beat great armies, led by able generals. 
Soldiers, supplies, arms, equipments and money, are 
the instruments that win battles. President Jefferson 
Davis and his Cabinet and Congress, General Lee and 
his officers and men, did all possible to be done, to in- 
sure success. And what they did with the means at 
command will forever stand the wonder of history. 

An agricultural people, without a government, an 



MEN AND THINGS 103 

army, a navy, a treasury or factory, and their ports 
closed by blockade, improvised all these in an in- 
credibly short time, and prosecuted a war of defense, 
against an enemy numbering three to their one, for 
four years. They fought six hundred battles, winning 
a greater number of them than they lost — a record 
without a parallel. And at last, when their beloved 
Confederacy went down, it fell like Sparta at ''Ther- 
mopylae," when its defenders had poured out liberty's 
"last libation." 

It appears to a layman incapable of military criti- 
cism, who necessarily forms his judgment upon facts 
and results, that some Confederate commanders exhibi- 
ted a skill and genius, that if equalled, was certainly 
never surpassed. Such is shown by Jackson, in his 
celebrated valley campaign, in which, by divining the 
intention of the enemy, information of his strength and 
location, accurate calculation of time, and the celerity 
of his own movements, with vastly inferior numbers, he 
defeated a large Federal Army, by attacking in detail, 
under Banks, Milroy, Freemont and Shields. And 
then he threw his troops, at the critical moment, into the 
Confederate lines at Frazier's Farm, Gaines' Mill, and 
Malvern Hill, and aided in the defeat of McClellan. 

By the same high quality of military leadership, Lee, 
with three troops to his one against him, repulsed Grant 
at the Wilderness ; met him at Spottsylvania ; slaugh- 
tered him at Cold Harbor, and kept him out of the 
Confederate Capitol. Lieutenant R. W. Dowling, com- 
manding the garrison (forty-four Irishmen), at Fort 
Grigsby, a weak earthwork, armed with fifteen guns, 



104 MEN AND THINGS 

located at Sabine Pass, was attacked by a Federal fleet 
of twenty-three vessels, and a force estimated at from 
ten to fifteen thousand men. In an engagement lasting 
an hour and thirty minutes, the garrison sank two gun- 
boats, crippled a third one, killed fifty, captured eigh- 
teen heavy guns, besides small arms, supplies, etc., and 
one hundred and fifty prisoners, including the com- 
mander of the fleet. The fleet was driven away and not 
a man hurt. This simple story reads like the wildest 
romance. 

About the last of February or first of March, 1865, 
Congress having done all it could do — suffering from 
my wound, and seeing that the impending doom must 
soon come — I left Richmond, with the Hon. Warren 
Akin, and two Alabamians, for my home. When we 
reached Greensboro, E". C, we learned that all the 
railroad bridges had been burned by the military, or 
washed away by the floods. We went to N'ewton, to 
the end of the Western ISF. C. Railway, and thence took 
the chances. .After much effort and difiiculty, we suc- 
ceeded in hiring a four-horse wagon and team, which 
the rain and mud made necessary, to carry four men, 
with light baggage, to Spartanburg. From this place, 
we proceeded by rail to Abbeville. Akin's family had 
refugeed to Elberton, and mine to Jefferson. From 
Abbeville to Elberton we were taken by another wagon 
"and four." 

Strange and unaccountable things sometimes occur in 
human history. Riding along in the wagon from ISTew- 
ton to Spartanburg, Col. Akin told me a dream he had 
the night before he left Richmond. He dreamed that 



MEN AND THINGS 105 

he was at home, and picked up his son Elbert, a boy of 
fifteen years, lying on the ground, the blood flowing 
from his mouth, and found him dead. Sitting on the 
hotel veranda at Abbeville, he arose, stating that he 
would go to the postoffice across the public square, and 
see if he could get any news from home. I noticed him 
as he left the office, open a letter, which he read, walk- 
ing slowly. I discovered, in a moment, from his move- 
ments (though fifty yards distant), that it contained 
sad news. Mrs. Akin had sent him a letter to Rich- 
mond, which he failed to receive, giving particulars. 
In the letter just received from Mrs. Akin, among 
other things, she incidentally said: "Since our beloved 
Elbert's death," without any other or further allusion 
to the subject. This was the first news of his eldest 
son's death. Although he maintained his calmness, I 
could see that his feelings were intensely wrought up 
with the mingled emotions of grief, anxiety and imcer- 
tainty. 

When we reached the Savannah River, it was so 
swollen by recent rains that the ferryman preemptorily 
refused to put us across. After earnest importunities 
of argument, and extravagant offers of pay, at last 
Col. Akin said to him, with an emphasis that touched 
his heart and overpowered his will: "I live in Elber- 
ton ; my son is dead, and I am going to reach Elberton 
this night." "What is your name?" asked the ferry- 
man. "Akin," replied the Colonel. "Are you any 
kin to the man who was killed in a horse-race the 
other day in Elberton?" asked the ferryman. The 
ferryman, against his judgment, finally consented, with 



106 MEN AND THINGS 

our aid, to put us across. By running the boat near 
the bank, whose friction neutralized the force of the 
current, to a proper distance, he shot it like an arrow 
diagonally across the raging flood, and struck the oppo- 
site landing. I spent that night in the hospitable, but 
bereaved home of my friend. ISTo allusion was made 
to the sorrow during the night. Next morning, as I 
bade him good-bye at the gate, he pointed to a large 
locust tree near, and said it was against that tree that 
Elbert was thrown and killed. The droam proci?cly 
revealed the facts. Elbert and another boy hud rid- 
den the horses to water. Returning, for amusement, 
they undertook to see which was the faster horse, with 
the result here recorded. To me, sometimes it seems 
a wonder that a boy was ever raised to manhood. 

I had the adventure of a train wreck near Athens, 
but escaped injury, and after a journey of ten or twelve 
^ays — which can now be made in a shorter time — I 
reached home. A few days thereafter, at Appomattox, 
the curtain fell upon the bloody tragedy. It was soon 
followed by two crimes of monstrous enormity — the as- 
sassination of President Lincoln in Ford's Theatre, at 
Washington, and the shackling in irons, of President 
Davis, in Fortress Monroe, upon the basely false charge 
of complicity therein. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Peesonnel of the Membees of the Second 
congeess. 

The study of a people, their opinions, principles, pas- 
sions and prejudices, as reflected through their repre- 
sentation, as well as the character, capacity, and per- 
sonal peculiarities of the Representatives themselves, 
was to me always interesting and instructive. 

The seething, boiling passions of revolutions, like 
volcanic eruptions, often cast to the surface anknown 
men, endowed with high capacity for command and 
leadership. However this truth may have been illus- 
trated in the military history of the Confederacy, it 
finds no confirmation in the civil service department of 
the government. The President and his Cabinet were 
distinguished statesmen, well known for their ability 
and long and faithful public service. This is also true 
of a number of the members of both houses of Congress. 

The House of Representatives was a body of able, 
brave, earnest men, ardently devoted to the success of 
the Confederate cause and unusually free from selfish 
ambition. Of course there were divergent views and 
opinions upon the wisdom of particular measures, but 
the members were a imit in the desire and purpose to 
promote the public interest. In ability, the members 

107 



108 MEN AND THINGS 

approximated as nearly equality as could be found in 
any body of the same number. The Georgia members 
were : Julian Hartridge, a graduate of Brown Univer- 
sity, a fine lawyer and polished orator. He had served 
his State as legislator and prosecuting attorney with 
decided ability. He was a strong debater and a courtly 
gentleman. William E. Smith was a practicing lawyer, 
with a strong will, clear discriminating judgment ; rarely 
spoke, but always voted. He had lost a leg in battle. 
Mark Blanford, rugged, rough, blunt and bright, was 
a lawyer, striking square from the shoulder, and never 
surrendering. He lost an arm in the war. After. the 
war, he was associate justice of the Supreme Court of 
Georgia, and was distinguished for his brevity, clear- 
ness and correctness of his decisions. Clifford Ander- 
son was a lawyer. He took his stand, while yet a 
young man, at the head of the profession. He was 
a pleasing speaker, had represented his county in the 
Legislature, before the war, and ably served the State 
as attorney-general, after the war was ended. John 
T. Shewmake was a quiet, cultured gentleman, who 
thought much, and spoke little. He was always present 
and gave close attention to the business before the 
House. Indeed, he kept a book in which he made a 
careful memorandum of everything that was done. 
Joseph H. Echols, an educated gentleman, was an ex- 
tensive planter. He had presided over a female college 
at Madison, Ga. He was a State Senator in 1861-2. 
He was an accomplished gentleman, a genial compan- 
ion, a faithful friend and an ardent patriot. James 
M. Smith, vigorous and robust in mind and body, was 



MEN AND THINGS 109 

an able lawyer. Though not inclined to speech-making 
he thought closely and logically and had strong and de- 
cided convictions, which he did not hesitate to avow 
and defend, and, as occasion was supposed to require, 
with the emphasis of certain expletives that do not ap- 
pear in Sunday literature. He was the first Democratic 
governor, after the Hegira of Rufus B. Bullock and 
his carpet-bag menagerie. George 'N. Lester was ad- 
mitted to the bar at the age of nineteen, by special act 
of the Legislature. He had been Supreme Court re- 
porter. He served two terms as chairman of the Judi- 
ciary Committee of the House of Representatives in the 
State Legislature; lost his right arm in the battle of 
Perryville, Ky. After the war, he was judge of the Su- 
perior Court in the Blue Ridge Circuit, and Attorney- 
General of the State. Hiram P. Bell received an Aca- 
demic education, secured by his own efforts ; was a mem- 
ber of the convention that seceded from the Union. He 
opposed secession; was elected to the Convention, Com- 
missioner to the State of Tennessee; was elected State 
Senator in 1861, served one session, and resigned to 
remain in the army; was Lt.-Col. of the Forty-third 
Regt., Georgia Volunteers; was desperately wounded 
and permanently disabled for further service at Vicks- 
burg. After the war, he served in the Forty-third and 
Forty-fifth Congress of the United States, and one term 
each in the House and Senate of the Legislature of 
Georgia. Warren Akin was probably the ablest lawyer 
in the Cherokee Circuit. He was a strong debater. 
He opposed Governor Brown for the Governorship, 
and, though defeated, he made a brilliant campaign. 



110 MEN AND THINGS 

He was speaker of the House of Representatives of 
1861-2, and won reputation as a presiding officer. It 
will be seen, that of the members of this delegation one, 
James M. Smith, became Governor; two, Lester and 
Blandford, Judges; two, Anderson and Lester, Attys.- 
General ; three, Hartridge, Bell, and William E. Smith, 
members of the United States Congress. 

Governor Brown's controversy with President Davis 
on the constitutionality of the conscript law and the 
right to appoint military officers in certain cases, had 
brought the Governor and the State, into disfavor at 
Richmond. The members from Georgia, being new 
men, were supposed to have been chosen because of the 
Governor's views and their sympathy therewith, or be- 
cause they had been mangled in battle, and that, in 
either case, the delegation could not be relied upon. 
This suspicion or speculation was successfully dissi- 
pated when Akin, Lester, Hartridge and Anderson 
tackled them in debate. This fact, I accidentally as- 
certained by overhearing a conversation that I could 
not avoid hearing, between Judge Gholston, a member 
of the House, and another gentleman. Gholston, after 
stating the distrust of the Georgia members, as above- 
stated, added that after hearing these gentlemen from 
Georgia and becoming personally acquainted with them, 
he was never more astonished in his life ; that he found 
the delegation as able, faithful and true as any one in 
the House. 

What is called oratory, or eloquence, has never been, 
and can never be, accurately defined nor described. 
There is no common authoritative standard of perfec- 



MEN AND THINGS 111 

tion established for the adjudication of its merits. 
Styles of speaking, and the impressions produced, are 
as different as those of a flower garden and a thunder 
storm; a battle and a landscape. Patrick Henry's 
"Give me liberty, or give me death," and William Wirt's 
answer to "Who is Blannerhassett ?" are the illustra- 
tion. The pictures of attitudes in books, that profess 
to teach the art of public speaking, are only ludicrous 
cartoons. Each auditor is a judge, and every auditor 
has an equal right to judge what constitutes it. Three 
professors will disagree in awarding the medal in a 
contest between a half-dozen college boys. Some speak- 
ers, by mellifluous voice and chaste, smooth flowing dic- 
tion, will charm the weak esthetic ; others, by clear, cold 
logic, will convince the judgment and control the re- 
luctant will of the stubborn ; still others, by the sym- 
pathetic earnestness of pathos, will excite and control 
the passions of the emotional. The possession, by a 
speaker, of all these powers, in harmonious combina- 
tion, in my opinion, makes him an orator. Few men 
possess them. Bishop George F. Pierce possessed them 
all in a larger degree than any speaker it was ever my 
privilege to hear. And Sargent S. P. Prentiss, in a 
more eminent degree than any orator of whom history 
or tradition, gives any information. The nearest ap- 
proach to a true definition of oratory, eloquence in- 
cluded, that can be attained, is that it is that form of 
speech, from living men to living men and women, that 
convinces the judgment, controls the will, masters the 
emotions and incites to action. 

Most legislation is considered and formulated in the 



112 M EN AND THINGS 

committee-room, and reported by the chairman to the 
House. The chairman, usually, engineers the report 
through the House, and is therefore, often on his feet 
engaged in discussion, and for this reason, the unini- 
tiated think he is a great man. This may or may not 
be true. Sometimes chairmen are appointed because 
of their ability ; often because of favoritism. Valuable 
men in legislation are those who think wisely and work 
constantly. Francis S. Lyon, whose character is so 
finely drawn, under the name of "The Hon. Francis 
Strother," by the master limner, Joseph Baldwin, in 
his "Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi," was 
chairman of the committee on Ways and Means; W. 
P. Miles, on Military Affairs; John A. Gilmer, on 
Privileges and Elections; Charles W. Russell, on the 
Judiciary; and Frank B. Sexton, on Postoffices and 
Post-Roads. As accomplished speakers, I think Hart- 
ridge and Vest excelled. Marshall, Lester, Akin and 
Baldwin were the strongest parliamentary debaters. 
W. N". H. Smith, Machen, Gilmer, Chilton and Col- 
yar, were the wisest practical legislators. . Barksdale, 
Dupree and Perkins were able, optimistic extremists. 
Charles W. Russell was a man of coldness, courage, 
and ability. It was understood that the administra- 
tion relied on him for leadership. Two men greatly 
impressed me for the possession of what I re- 
garded as high qualities and capacity for legisla- 
tion. They were W. N. H. Smith, of N". C, and W. 
B. Machen, of Ky. They were w^atchful, wise, cau- 
tious and practical. They were both modest, unobtru- 
sive and able. They understood the use of language, 



MEN AND THINGS 113 

and in a few plain words, successfully exposed the 
wrong, sustained the right, or explained the doubtful. 
William C. Rives was the Nestor of the House in age 
only. He had been United States Senator, and Min- 
ister to France, and at that time, stood with the first 
statesmen of Virginia; but age had palsied the sceptre 
of his power. There was one member of the House 
who, for uniqueness and picturesqueness, stood, like 
Adam's recollection of his fall, alone. This was Henry 
S. Foote. His intellect was bright, his information 
large, his experience varied, and his courage invin- 
cible. He had been shot in a duel wdth Prentiss, had 
the memorable scene with Benton in the United States 
Senate, and had defeated Jefferson Davis for Governor 
of Mississippi. He represented the Washville District, 
Tenn. He had lost all hope (if he had any), in the 
success of the Confederate cause. He was a Don 
Quixote, a sort of free lance, that w^ould fight a wind- 
mill or a mogul engine with equal alacrity. For some 
cause which I never understood, or it may be without 
any cause, he was exceedingly bitter in his feelings to- 
ward Mr. Davis and Mr. Benjamin. He allowed no 
occasion to pass; and with or without excuse, he 
never spoke without indulging in denunciatory invec- 
tive against them, pronouncing their names with a 
vicious malignity of tone, and a contemptuous sneer of 
derision and distortion of expression of face, that baf- 
fled description. A resolution to expel him was intro- 
duced and referred to the committee on privileges and 
elections. All the members of the committee — the 
chairman and myself excepted — promptly adopted a re- 



114 MEN AND THINGS 

port in favor of the resolution. We submitted a minor- 
ity report against the resolution. He was not expelled. 
A short time after this he left Richmond. It will be 
understood that the mention of certain members of 
Congress by name, is not to the disparagement of those 
not referred to by name. I wish I had the data, time 
and space to give to those who come after us, the his- 
tory, of every member of this body of true men, who 
participated in the last scene of the play, and witnessed 
the fall of the curtain upon the bloody tragedy of Civil 
War. 

I am unwilling to close this chapter without referring 
to one member of the cabinet ; the last one appointed by 
Mr. Davis. I refer to John C. Breekenridge, Secre- 
tary of War. I had a matter of business for a constit- 
uent before the department and happened to be present 
when he was sworn in. Being inmiediately introduced 
to him, I congratulated him, and the Confederacy, 
upon his appointment, to which he replied that he 
could not say as to the Confederacy, but that certainly, 
in view of the momentous responsibilities of the office, 
he was not to be congratulated personally. He invited 
me to a seat, took one himself in my front, and at once 
began, in an easy way, a most charming conversation. 
He inquired what district I represented, and in what 
section of the State it was located. He asked particu- 
larly about the state of affairs in Georgia, the condi- 
tion and sentiments of the people in my district. Know- 
ing the pressure of business, and the weight of responsi- 
bility upon him, as well as the value of time, as soon as 
a pause occurred in the flow of his delightful conversa- 



MEN AND THINGS 115 

tion, and I could do so without rudeness, I stated what I 
wanted. He said: ''Really, I do not know whether this 
matter is under the jurisdiction of the Secretary, or the 
Chief of the Conscript Bureau. You see this business is 
all new to me ; I will see." Calling his chief clerk by the 
tap of his bell, who at once responded, he asked him 
"which had jurisdiction, the Secretary or the Chief?" 
"Both," replied the clerk ; whereupon, in a moment and 
without a word, he took up his pen and granted my re- 
quest. This is the man who contests, with Henry Clay, 
the premiership of affection in the heart of Kentuck- 
ians; that presided over the highest legislative body in 
the world, and of which Clay had been the most illus- 
trious member. He was scholar, soldier, orator, states- 
man and patriot. The memory of this brief interview 
has lingered with me for almost half a century, fresh as 
the dew of the morning, and sweet as the fragrance of 
roses. His superb physique, his versatile accomplish- 
ments and excellencies, his intellectual, moral and so- 
cial qualities — all in symmetrical and faultless com- 
bination — made him, in my conception, the most mag- 
nificent specimen of manhood I ever beheld. When 
the Confederacy fell, the United States requited his 
long and brilliant .public service with malignant hate 
and relentless persecution, and thus compelled him to 
seek refuge among strangers. On entering the boat 
on the coast of Florida, which Avas to bear him away, 
he thanked a Confederate private who had served him; 
adding that he wished it was in his power to requite 
his kindness. "It is," replied the private. "Corporal 
A. has abused and lorded it over me because he is an 



116 MEN AND THINGS 

oflScer and I a private, I want to outrank him ;" where- 
upon he was brevetted Captain on the spot, and made 
happy. This was the last official act of the Confeder- 
ate Secretary of War. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
Lincoln and Davis. 

ISTo two men in the last half of the ISTineteenth Cen- 
tury engaged a larger share of public attention than 
Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Future gene- 
rations will be anxious to know their history, actions 
and achievements, without the time and labor required 
to gain the knowledge, by searching the numerous vol- 
umes in which it is to be found. They were both born 
in Kentucky, not far apart in distance, and near in 
time, Davis in 1808 and Lincoln in 1809. They were 
born under the same moral, social and civil institutions, 
but under diverse conditions; Lincoln, in abject pov- 
erty, Davis in comparative affluence. Lincoln, with- 
out education in his boyhood, went to the wilderness of 
Illinois to earn his bread by the toil of his hands and 
the sweat of his brow. Davis went from Transylvania 
University to West Point for military training. After 
a few years they met in the Blackhawk War, Lincoln 
the awkward, untrained captain of a company of three- 
months raw militia; Davis, the scholarly, polished lieu- 
tenant of the regular army. Lincoln next appears, suc- 
cessfully practicing the profession of law in the county 
of Sangammon, 111.; Davis, at the head of the "Mis- 
sissippi Rifles," winning victory for his country at 

117 



118 MEN AND THINGS 

Buena Vista, in Mexico. Lincoln, a free-soil Whig, 
became a leading lawyer in the ^N^orthwest; Davis, a 
pro-slavery States Rights Democrat, became a planter, 
in the Southwest. They were both intensely patriotic 
and ambitious. They had experienced alike the tri- 
umph of success and the chagrin of defeat. Trum- 
bull and Douglass each had defeated Lincoln for the 
United States Senate ; a Warren County Whig had de- 
feated Davis for the Legislature, and Henry S. Foote 
had defeated him for Governor of Mississippi. Both 
had been Representatives in Congress. Lincoln was an 
ardent supporter of the father-in-law of Davis, Gen. 
Taylor, for the Presidency. Davis supported Gen. 
Cass for that high office. 

The compromise measures of 1850 and the Kansas- 
I^ebraska Legislation of 1854, formed the volcano, 
whose eruption deluged the land in the burning lava 
of human passion which was soon to be crimsoned into 
seas of human blood. 

While Davis was quietly and ably administering the 
affairs of the War Department in Pierce's Cabinet, 
Lincoln was busily and earnestly engaged in organiz- 
ing the anti-slavery elements of all parties into the Re- 
publican party. The condition of affairs in "bleeding 
Kansas," supplied the means of success. The anti- 
slavery people met in a "Freesoil" convention in Bloom- 
inffton in 1856. To this convention Lincoln was chosen 
a delegate. It was to this convention he delivered his 
celebrated "lost" speech. It was called his "lost" 
speech because the reporters were so overwhelmed by its 
power and eloquence that they forgot to report it. 



MEN AND THINGS 119 

Joscpli ^Medell cominenced to report it for a Chicago 
paper, but after writing a few lines of the introduction, 
he laid aside his pencil and thought no more of the re- 
port until the conclusion of the speech. It was pre- 
served in this way. A young lawyer w^ith whom Lin- 
coln had thoroughly discussed the matter of the speech 
before its delivery, took accurate and elaborate notes, 
by which he was afterwards enabled to reproduce it. 
I doubt whether any other speech, ever delivered on this 
continent, ever produced consequences so momentous. 
That speech formed and solidified the Republican party 
and made Lincoln its great leader. After the expira- 
tion of Davis' service in the Cabinet, he was returned 
to the United States Senate, from Mississippi, and be- 
came, by common consent, leader of the pro-slavery, 
States Rights sentiments of the South. Lincoln was 
elected President on an anti-slavery platform. Davis 
was the recognized champion of slavery and States 
rights, as guaranteed by the Constitution. 

Lincoln and Davis were alike in some respects. They 
were each endowed with the highest order of mind. 
They were both thoroughly educated; Lincoln, seK- 
educated by close, constant, laborious reading and pa- 
tient and profound thought and extensive observation 
and experience. Davis' education, the best the fore- 
most institutions of the country could give, w^as en- 
larged and perfected by reading, thinking, and official 
association with the first men of this and foreig-n lands, 
in the discharge of cabinet, senatorial and military 
duties. They were both perfectly familiar with the 
political history of the country. They belonged to op- 



120 MEN AND THINGS 

posite schools of constitutional construction and civic 
policy. Lincoln was elected President of the United 
States of America. The Southern States seceded, 
formed a new government, which they named "The 
Confederate States of America," and unanimously 
elected Davis, president. Thus, these two great men 
confronted each other. They stood like the disputing 
knights, looking upon opposite sides of the same 
shield. On Lincoln's side the device "Preserva- 

tion of the Union;" on Davis' "The Sovereignity 
of the States, and the right of Self -Government." 
They were equally honest, conscientious, patriotic and 
determined, and compromise imjoossible, was inevitable, 
the fractricidal conflict came. 'No one knows and no 
one can tell, the burden of labor they endured, the tor- 
ture of anxiety they suffered, and the anguish of grief 
they experienced, during the four years of slaughter 
and blood. 

Lincoln and Davis were unlike in their personnel. 
Lincoln was tall in stature, six feet and two inches, raw- 
boned, with hands and feet large, and limbs long, un- 
graceful in movement and attitude ; indifferent to dress 
and almost ludicrously uncouth on horse-back. The 
expression of his face was variable as the weather. In 
repose, it was indicative of profound thought. When 
telling an anecdote, in which he excelled, it kindled 
with the light of humor, xit times, his face was shaded 
with the expression of mingled dignity and sorrow, 
with a "far-away look" that told of some tender emo- 
tion that silently stirred the depths of his great heart. 
Davis was five feet, ten inches in height, compactly 



MEN AND THINGS 121 

built, •with rather small hands and feet; a finely 
rounded and well-formed head; plainly but neatly 
dressed; talked in a low, calm voice; with manners the 
perfection of gi-ace and elegance. He sat his horse like 
a Knight of the Crusaders. His step, with a very 
slight limp from a wound in the foot at Buena Vista, 
was the elastic tread of the trained soldier. They dif- 
fered widely in their style of composition and elocution. 
Lincoln expressed his thoughts mainly by the use of 
nouns, verbs and participles, using short, simple, Saxon 
words, many of them of one syllable, but well chosen, 
to express forcibly the idea. Like the miner, digging 
in the gravel for gold, he struggled by the shortest and 
simplest way, to reach the nuggets of truth his honest 
heart sought to find. He was sparing in the use of ad- 
jectives and adverbs. His sentences were sometimes 
rugged and disjointed. They lacked smoothness and 
completeness in roundness and rhythm, but went with- 
out ceremony or surplusage straight to the center, and 
presented his thought in unadorned purity. And yet 
occasionally, though rarely, he excelled all the great 
masters in the beauty, power and pathos of his style, 
as exemplified in his Gettysburg speech, his letter of 
condolence of Mrs. Bixby, and the incomparable sen- 
tences with which he closes his first inaugural. He 
said: "I am loathe to close. We are not enemies, but 
friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion 
may have strained it must not break, our bonds of af- 
fection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from 
every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living 
heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will 



122 MEN AND THINGS 

yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched 
(as they surely will be), by the better angels of our 
nature." 

Davis' style, like his character, was chaste and clean, 
his words aptly chosen, and so arranged into sentences 
as to evoke the precise thought, with mathematical ac- 
curacy. It was smooth, easy, gTacef ul and clear as sun- 
light. It was cold, presented the thought intended with- 
out the slightest tint of coloring. Davis was precise but 
not pretentious. He seemed to be cold without being so. 
He believed in forms. It was constitutional with him. 
His training at West Point, his administration of the 
War Department, adding to his natural inclination in 
that direction, made him punctilious in the observance 
of forms. He was proud, but it was the soldiery pride 
of conscious honor and rectitude. He was brave; he 
never "stooped to conquer." He would have perished in 
flames at the stake sooner than bend the supple 
hinges of the knee, that thrift may follow fawning." 
Davis closed his first inaugural in these eloquent 
words: "It is joyous, in the midst of these perilous 
times, to look around upon a people united in heart, 
where one purpose of high resolve animates and actu- 
ates the whole; where sacrifices to be made, are not 
weighed in the balance against honor and right, and 
liberty and equality. Obstacles may retard, but they 
can not prevent the progress of a movement, sanctified 
by its justice and sustained by a virtuous people. 
Keverently let us invoke the God of our fathers to 
guide and protect us in our efforts to perpetuate the 
principles which, by His blessing, they are able to vin- 



ME If AXD THINGS 123 

dicate, establish and transmit to their posterity. With 
the continuance of His favor, ever gratefully acknowl- 
edged, we may hopefully look forward to success, to 
peace, and to prosperity." 

The attitude of these two great men may be summa- 
rized thus : Lincoln would destroy the "Constitution to 
serve the Union." Davis would dissolve the Union to 
serve the Constitution. During these stormy times, 
they had a similar personal and family bereavement; 
they each had a favorite boy. Tad Lincoln died in 
the "White House," at Washington; Joe Davis was 
killed by a fall from the veranda of the "Executive 
Mansion in Richmond." The heart of Lincoln had 
lavished all its wealth of affection on Tad. It was 
wrung with anguish at his death. I witnessed grief 
personified, in Davis, at the funeral of Joe. A feeling 
of deep sadness, stealthily steals over one, as he reflects 
upon the end of these two great men. Lincoln was the 
head of a government de jure ; Davis, of a government 
de facto. They were respectively, the commanders-in- 
chief, of the armies and navies of their governments, in 
which three and a half millions of men were engaged — 
on land and sea — in a death grapple for national ex- 
istence, and these w^ere brothers of the same blood, iden- 
tified in history, hopes and destiny. In the hour of 
exultant victory, Lincoln was basely assassinated by a 
citizen brought back into the Union he died and suf- 
fered so much to restore. Davis, in the mortification 
of defeat, was cruelly imprisoned, and disfranchised by. 
a government, to the service of which he had given his 
best thought and blood, and died without a country. 



124 MEm AND THINGS 

It will be the wonder of those who come after us 
that a people with a history so glorious, resources so 
immense, progress so rapid, and a prosperity so uni- 
versal, would rudely risk or wreck it all in a sectional 
Civil War. The reason they did is simple and ob- 
vious. It was because passion, avarice and ambition 
usurped the throne of reason, justice and patriotism. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Condition of the Southern People at the Closb 
OF the Wae. 

There were three things which enabled unprincipled, 
ambitious demagogues, JSTorth and South, to madden 
the American people and create the conditions that 
made the Civil War possible, if not inevitable. They 
were, the conflict in Kansas, the assault of Brooks upon 
Sumner, in the Senate, and John Brown's raid upon 
Harper's Ferry. These facts appealed to passion, with 
a force that overcame the resistance of reason and pa- 
triotism. The deplorable assassination of Lincoln in- 
flamed the victors into a frenzy of fury, put into the 
presidency the prince of ambitious demagogues, in 
whom neither party had the slightest confidence, and 
for whom neither had any respect, and thus entailed 
upon the vanquished the heritage of reconstruction. 
Had Lincoln survived, all the probabilities are, and all 
the indications show, that the States would have been 
allowed to readjust their relations to the Union, through 
their o^vn voluntary civil action, without intervention of 
military despotism. And the butchery of Mrs. Sur- 
ratt and Wirtz would not have disgraced the pages of 
American history. The L^nion would have been really 



125 



126 MEN AND THINGS 

restored and become stronger than ever before, in the 
affectibns of the American people. 

Reconstruction was inaugurated and guided by a 
cyclone of malignant hate, upon a people who had 
bravely fought for their convictions until overwhelmed 
by resources and numbers. When the end came, their 
poverty was pitiable, their anguish pathetic, and their 
helplessness remediless, when this monstrous policy of 
despotism was imposed upon them. They were cut 
off from the world by the blockade on one side and by 
an army of immense numbers on the other. The boys 
and men between the ages of seventeen and fifty, were 
in the field. The four years of horrible war had abso- 
lutely exhausted all their resources of men and means. 
The glorious chivalry of the Confederacy filled un- 
marked graves — from the Susquehanna to the Rio 
Grande. Fields, orchards and gardens, had been tram- 
pled down. Dwellings had been abandoned or burned, 
towns and cities, sacked and consumed, people shot 
down and their homes "prowled." Churches and ceme- 
teries had been desecrated and robbed. The people were 
practically without food and clothing, and absolutely 
destitute of money; schools were suspended, and serv- 
ices at the churches nearly so. The whole land was a 
scene of decadence, ashes and ruins; and every home 
filled with hearts breaking and bleeding with the agony 
of grief for dead loved ones. A few gray-headed men 
and matrons, many widows, some youths and children, 
and the maimed, shattered remnant of the world's brav- 
est army, were left. Virtue, intelligence and patriot- 
ism w^ere proscribed by law; and enfranchised, igno- 



MEN AND THINGS 127 



rant, illiterate, thieving negroes, were set to making or- 
ganic laws — constitutions for the government of a people 
with the blood of Kevolutionary sires flowing through 
their veins. This martyrdom continued in most of the 
Confederate States for seven years. 

"Surely there is some chosen curse, some secret thun- 
der, in the stores of Heaven, red with uncommon wrath, 
to blast the wretch who owes his greatness to his coun- 
try's ruin." At the commencement of the war, plant- 
ing was largely abandoned. It was a sort of social enter- 
tainment to cut and make neat uniforms for the boys; 
and pack, and ship to them, boxes of dainty viands. As 
the war progressed, the withdrawal of the labor of the 
field, reduced the production of supplies. The tax in 
kind claimed a large share for the support of the army ; 
and the question of support soon began to be a serious 
one, for the non-producers — the women and children at 
home. It became impossible to obtain coffee ; parched 
meal, corn and rye were substituted, ^^^len the supply 
of clothing was exhausted, the good women, resorted to 
the old-time spinning-wheel and loom, — both home- 
made. The State managed to distribute among the 
people a small number of pairs of cotton-cards ; and the 
land became vocal with rasping, crashing cards, the 
hum of wheels and the hanging-rattle of loom. Home- 
made apparel, dyed with maple and sweet-gum bark, 
ivy leaves, and the bark off walnut roots, constituted the 
wardrobe. It is surprising with what artistic skill the 
dear, good women mingled these colors into a "thing of 
beauty," and therefore, "a joy forever." They met 
necessities by improvising expedients. They exhibited 



128 MEN AND THINGS 

resources of invention that entitles them to a lofty niche 
in the temple of genius. 

It made but little difference that Confederate money 
constantly depreciated, because there was nothing to 
buy nor sell. What little trading was done was on 
credit; but the price agreed on was upon the basis of the 
face value of Confederate currency. The last purchase 
I made before the surrender, was a bushel of salt, for 
which I paid $1,000.00. There was much indebtness 
contracted before the war, existing at its close. At my 
suggestion a public mass-meeting of the people of For- 
syth County was held, which unanimously adopted a 
resolution asking creditors and debtors to settle by 
compromise, the indebtedness, upon reasonable terms. 
Many of them did so. The people of Georgia, in the 
Convention of October 1865, passed an ordinance au- 
thorizing the courts and juries to adjust the equities 
between the parties to Confederate contracts, upon the 
basis of the value of the money and the value of the 
thing for which it was promised, as compared with 
gold, or par money. This was a happy solution of a 
perplexing problem. 

The more enterprising class of the recently emanci- 
pated, ignorant, free negroes united with Yankee "Car- 
pet-baggers," Confederate, boom-proof refugees, and 
conscript "dodgers," joined Congress, led by Steven 
Sumner, Butler and their partisan followers in the 
work of reconstruction. Another class of negroes, as 
soon as they were enabled to procure the desired outfit 
of a brass watch-chain, a cane, umbrella, eye-glasses, 
Prince Albert coat, standing collar and plug hat, joined 



MEN AND THINGS 129 

the ministry. They engaged in soliciting contributions 
to build imaginary churches. The cash they thus ob- 
tained, which was not inconsiderable, never material- 
ized into tangible buildings. The remaining class of 
the colored people, and by far the largest, entered with 
vigorous energy upon their favorite pursuits of running 
rabbits, burning rails, stealing chickens, attending frol- 
ics and funerals and reporting to the "Freedman's 
Bureau" complaints of contracts which they themselves 
had violated. They generally secured redress from this 
august tribunal, by imposing upon the employer a pun- 
ishment for the negro's violation of his contract. 

The true and faithful men, women and children, 
with broken-down army horses and mules, and such im- 
plements as they could improvise, went to work im- 
pelled by necessity and inspired by hope. Many a 
brave Confederate, with one arm or a wooden peg-leg, 
followed the plow in cheerful toil, to support the wife 
and children of his love. They nobly requited this de- 
votion by generous aid in the field, and the faithful 
performance of the wifely domestic duties of the house- 
hold. Rigid frugality, unremitting industry, and the 
blessings of the great God, who notes the sparrow's fall, 
and feeds the young ravens when they cry, rewarded 
their heroic efforts with signal success. 

There was a saving factor in the preservation of or- 
der and the prevention of lawlessness in the institution 
and organization of the "Ku Klux Klan" — the report 
of the Congressional committee to the contrary, not- 
withstanding. It was the old patrol system of slavery 
times; with the addition of fantastic dress and hobgob- 



130 MEN AXD THINGS 

lin masks, intended to restrain base negroes from crime 
and lawlessness, by appealing to their superstitious 
fears. It acted like a charm. I never heard of a case 
of outrage perpetrated by the "Klan," except through 
the report of the Congressional committee, based upon 
the testimony of men of the type of Titus Oates and 
Dangerfield, the vile emissaries of reconstruction, who 
would incite the black race to crime against the white. 

The mind that conceived the "Klan" was a genius. 
He understood precisely the nature and weakness of 
the negro ; and he discovered the means of making that 
weakness, instead of the instrument of crime, the ele- 
ment of safety to both races. It met an emergency of 
the gravest character with a remedy of the most abso- 
lute success. The triumphant defense finds expression 
in the legal maxim: "Salus populi, suprema est lex." 
Constant, patient, hopeful toil ; with remunerative 
prices for the South's great staple, and the blessing of 
Divine Providence, the influx of capital and the im- 
migTation of sterling, energetic business men from the 
Northern and I^orthwestern States have within the brief 
space of four decades transformed the South from a 
plain of ashes and ruins, into a garden of bounty and 
beauty. 

The promise and possibilities of the future have no 
horizon. All this was accomplished by a people, w4io, 
— like Job — were "chosen in the furnace of affliction." 
It is something to have lived in the age of such a people. 
It is more to have been a part of such a people. 

It is due to the colored people to put on record (which 
I do with great pleasure,) their fidelity and devotion 



MEN AND THINGS 131 

to their masters, their families and their interests dur- 
ing the war. Thev were reliable, faithful and true, 
until contact with the Federal army inspired them with 
treacherous hostility. Some — a few — have remained 
faithful to the attachment and friendships of their for- 
mer relations — through all the vicissitudes that fol- 
lowed their changed condition. An aged slave of the 
brother of Jefferson Davis, who lived in Florida, was 
accustomed to send to the ex-President and his family, 
at "Beauvoir,'' choice fruits from his garden and or- 
chard. And when the venerable old man heard that 
the President was dangerously sick — through g-reat 
difficulties — he made his way to New Orleans to grasp, 
one time more, the hand of his friend and his idol. He 
reached the city the day after the death ; and found the 
room containing the remains, closed to visitors. Mrs. 
Davis admitted him to the death-chamber. The hum- 
ble African standing looking upon the dead President, 
with his aged, dim eyes streaming with the torrents of 
grief, and heart heaving with agony, presents a scene 
of anguish so deep, and love so pure that I drop the 
curtain and let God and angels only, look upon this 
"sanctum sanctorum" of devotion and love. 

When Sherman's army reached Kennesaw, I found 
it necessary to fall back in imitation of the Fabian 
policy of General Joseph E. Johnston ; and ref ugeed 
from Gumming to Jefferson, in July 1864. Being a 
member of the Confederate Congress was supposed to 
be a sufficient cause for my arrest and imprisonment, 
if not execution. The day after I left a squadron of 
Yankee cavalry made its appearance in town for that 



132 MEX AND THINGS 

purpose; but after plundering the citizens, shooting at 
some boys and capturing a few horses, retired without 
accomplishing their high and patriotic purpose. I re- 
mained in Jefferson until October 1865. When I left 
I turned over my house, garden and orchard ^ to a 
homeless shoemaker, to occupy, free of rent until called 
for. In October I came over to notify him that I had 
arranged to return home and wanted the house. To my 
amazement, he said he did not see how he could leave. 
He made various pretended excuses for not vacating, all 
of which I promptly removed, or answered. At last 
he said flatly that he would not leave, that the property 
was given him by the Yankees and was his. This ex- 
hausted the argument or reduced it to the argumentum 
ad hominem. It is scarcely necessary to add that 
he speedily found it eminently convenient to retire 
from the place. 

It is strange how calamitous times develop the oppo- 
site phases of himaan character. While angels of 
mercy in human form, are helping the stricken and 
suffering in the Johnstown and Galveston floods, — in- 
carnate fiends are cutting off the fingers of dead wo- 
men to rob them of jewelry. This tenant at will would 
requite a favor with robbery. There is no form of 
conscience to which these degenerates can be remit- 
ted. The final assize, alone, can settle with them. 
From the surrender in April 1865, to the close of the 
year, I did not have a penny in money, in this world. 
My two former slaves, Adam, and Jane, his wife, re- 
mained with us during the year and aided us in 
moving back home. I supplied them with an outfit of 



MEN AND THIXGS 133 

household furniture; and each of them a neat, sub- 
stantial suit of clothes (for which 1 went in debt) ; 
and furnished them a wagon and team, to move to their 
chosen home. Adam soon became prominent in religion 
and politics. About two years thereafter he came into 
my office — the shreds of the suit I had given him, drip- 
ping with water and his teeth chattering with cold, — 
to employ me to defend him for stealing meat. After 
all, emancipation is not an unmixed blessing! 

From January 1866 to the last of December 1873, 
I was engaged in practicing law, in ten counties in 
"Blue Ridge" and adjoining circuits, with occasional 
cases in other counties and in the Supreme Court. 
During the course of my practice I have appeared 
in about sixty cases of murder, generally for the 
defense. I have had three clients executed, for 
one of them was assigned with Colonel C. 'D. 
Phillips, by the court. Among these clients were 
three women, two of them white, and one col- 
ored. But one white woman has been hanged in 
Georgia since I came to the bar. I never heard of but 
one other, a good record for the 'Empire State of the 
South.' These seven years were immediately suc- 
ceeding the surrender and during the reconstruction 
period. The courts in the mountain counties were full 
of cases gTowing out of the war. This litigation was 
characterized by bitter and fierce passion. It is due 
to the bar to say, that the lawyers did much to allay 
personal hostility, and restore fraternity among the 
people. A circuit practice, among a rural people, was 
delightful to me. It is a fine school in which to study 



134 me:si and things 

human nature. The hidicrous, the humorous and pa- 
thetic, all pass in kaleidoscopic panorama before the 
court. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

The Foety-tiiikd Congress and Pakty Leaders. 

The Forty-third Congress met in December 1873. The 
representatives from Georgia were Morgan Rawls, Rich- 
ard H. Whitely, Phillip Cook, Henry R. Harris, 
James H. Blount, James Freeman, Pierce M. B. 
Yonng, Ambrose R. Wright and Hiram P. Bell. Gen- 
eral Wright died before Congress assembled ; and Alex- 
ander H. Stephens was chosen to fill the vacancy. Mor- 
gan Rawls was unseated, upon a contest by Andrew 
Sloan, who took Rawls' seat. Three of these represen- 
tatives were Republicans, — Whitely, Freeman and 
Sloan. The delegation took the modified oath. The 
Forty-third Congress was overwhelmingly Republican. 
James G. Blaine was re-elected speaker and Edward 
McPherson, clerk. The Congress was spotted with half 
a dozen or more, free negi'oes — three of whom were 
from the State of Calhoun, Preston, Lowndes and Mc- 
Duffy. Three of the late Confederate States, South 
Carolina, Louisiana and Arkansas, were still struggling 
in the anarchical throes of the aftermath of recon- 
struction. The vital national questions before this Con- 
gress were : the silver question, the Force Bill, the Civil 
Rights Bill, repeal of the Salary Grab Act of the Forty- 
second Congress, etc. Much time was devoted to con- 

135 



136 MEN AND THINGS 

tested seats, occupied by Democrats, by defeated Kepub- 
licans, who generally won upon party grounds. It was 
during this Congress that Kala Kawa, King of the Ha- 
waiian Islands, visited Washington. He was accorded 
an official public reception by the House of Representa- 
tives. He was a dark, copper-colored negro, appearing 
to be about forty-five years old; six feet in height, 
squarely built with an avoirdupois of about 200. He 
wore a black 'Trince Albert" coat, standing collar and 
plug hat. He took his stand in front of the Speaker 
of the House. Mr. Blaine received him in a formal, 
handsome speech of official palaver, to which the 
King's premier, Mr. Allen, a Massachusetts Yankee, 
responded with the same material, less handsomely. 
During this memorable State occasion, I happened to 
occupy a seat next to Hon. A. Herr Smith ; a small, dry, 
hard, typical Pennsylvania Republican, and the suc- 
cessor of Thaddeus Stevens. Mr. Smith seemed to be 
enraptured and said to me, in a whisper, "Oh my! 
\Xhsit a magnificent king!" I replied jocularly, "Yes, 
that negro would have brought $1,500.00 on the block 
in ante-bellum times." It so offended him that he did 
not wish to speak to me afterwards. President Grant 
gave to the King a State reception at the ^Vhite House, 
and I had the honor of an introduction to the King, 
by the Hon. Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State, as the 
King stood by the side of the hero of Appomattox and 
President of the United States. How much all this 
may have had to do with afterwards obtaining the 
King's domain, I will not undertake to say. It w^as 
during colored radical regnancy that the radical leaders 



MEN AXD THINGS 137 

caused the South Carolina negro, — Elliott, to reply to 
the great Constitutional argument of Alexander H. 
Stephens against the Civil Eights Bill. The bill was 
passed. The scene in the House of Representatives 
attending this legislative folly, was a memorable and 
historic one. The bill was the offspring of malignant 
hate, intended to harrass and humiliate the white people 
of the South. It was unconstitutional, subversive of so- 
cial order and mere brutum fulmen, when enacted into 
law. It emanated from the brain and heart of Benjamin 
F. Butler, of Massachusetts. On the day of its pas- 
sage, the lobby and galleries were crowded and packed 
to their utmost capacity with excited, anxious specta- 
tors, who came to witness, — by a combination of ISTorth- 
ern radicals. Southern renegades and free negroes, 
through the forms of law — the degTadation of a section 
and a brave people that had given Washington, Henry, 
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Clay and Cal- 
houn, to national glory and history. As I surveyed from 
my seat, that crowd, Macaulay's magnificent description 
of the audience at the trial of Warren Hastings, pressed 
with vivid force, upon my thought and memory. 
There was this difference only. In the American 
audience, there was not, as in the English, the stars, 
garters and heraldic insignia of hereditary nobility. 
Butler made the closing speech. His personnel was not 
prepossessing. He was rather below medium height 
obese, heavy, full with flabby cheeks, shaggy eye-brows 
and cock-eyed. He was a man of decided ability and 
will power ; in partisan politics, a free lance, but al- 
ways for Butler. In speech his voice was harsh and 



138 MEN AND THINGS 

his manner and attitudes ungraceful. His points in 
debate were sharp and vigorous. ^Mien under the in- 
fluence of high passion in speech, he blew and spouted, 
like a harpooned whale. Senator Voorhees thought 
Thaddeus Stevens resembled Danton. Butler was the 
Marat in this attempted social revolution, to place the 
African upon an equality with the Caucasian. During 
his speech he made a statement involving racial chas- 
tity, concerning the people of Richmond, Va., where- 
upon the tall, handsome young Republican represen- 
tative of the Richmond district arose, advanced a few 
steps down the center aisle, and fiercely and bitterly 
denounced the statement as a falsehood. The vote was 
taken, the bill passed, the infamy went on record — an 
Apple of Sodom presented to the negroes, which turned 
to ashes on their lips. The character, endowments and 
motives of the men in ofiicial life who lead the 
thought and make the laws for the government of the 
people, have always been the subject of interesting in- 
quiry and considerations; and peculiarly so, in troub- 
lous and revolutionary times. 

The writer is fully aware of the unconscious color- 
ing which prejudice, arising from party affiliations, or 
opposing views, is likely to give in the estimate of 
those with whom we disagree. But he begs to assure 
the reader that in his estimate and criticism of the 
great public men with whom he deals, his sole desire 
is to present the truth, as it appears to him. Others, 
of course, may differ widely from him in opinion. But 
uniformity of opinion upon such a subject, is not at- 
tainable. 



MEN AND THIN OS 139 

James G. Blaine was the nncliallenged leader of 
the Republican party in the House of Eepresenta- 
tives during the Forty-third Congress. He possessed 
many fine elements of successful leadership. A com- 
manding figure, great personal magnetism, a good judge 
of men, an active, sprightly mind, a ready debater and 
a thorough parliamentarian, he found but little diffi- 
culty in controlling its policy, principles and legisla- 
tion. And yet it seemed to me that he was lacking in 
the qualities of broad, comprehensive statesmanship. 
His public life impressed me as a play for the presi- 
dency. He was aided by able lieutenants — Dawes, Kelly 
and Garfield. These were men of great ability and 
large experience in public life. They w-ere respectivel;)^ 
at the head of the most important committees of the 
House. They were, while ardent partisans, fair deba- 
ters and patriotic legislators. They differed from Blaine 
in this : Blaine was a political leader ; they were leaders 
in legislation and the practical duties connected with it. 
They were masters of its forms and procedures. They 
were all good speakers, none of them approximating the 
highest order of oratory. 

Of the four, Blaine was the most pleasing speaker. 
Committee service in the House has a tendency to 
specialize the thoughts and efforts of members. Blaine's 
speciality was to keep his party properly in line, and 
ready for offense or defense. Kelly's specialties were: 
Currency, Manufacturers and Tariff. The thoughts 
of both Dawes and Garfield took in a wider range of 
legislation. Garfield was the most erudite of these 
famous men. He was not a successful party leader. 



140 MEN AND THINGS 

He was more of the scholar, philosopher and statesman. 
Blaine was the Knight whose plume the rank and file 
of the Republicans followed as their Oriflamme. The 
four great leaders of the Democratic minority of the 
House were Samuel J. Randall, James B. Beck, Sam- 
uel S. Cox, and L. Q. C. Lamar. They each differed 
from the others in qualifications, and each excelled 
the others in the different departments of parliamen- 
tary leadership. Randall was cool, quiet, of plain sim- 
ple speech, always self-poised, knew exactly the pre- 
cise status of the business, watchful as Argus, nothing 
escaped his notice and no advantage over the adversary 
was allowed by him to pass unimproved. He led the 
60 successive hours, day and night, of fillibustering 
against the Civil Rights Bill. His mastery of the 
mystic mazes of the rules of the House, and the skill 
with which he unwound the knotty tangles of parlia- 
mentary puzzles, showed a genius of the highest order. 
The value of such a leader of the minority against a 
united majority, not troubled with scruples of con- 
science, is invaluable. 

James B. Beck was a rugged, robust Scotchman. He 
represented the Ashland district, made famous by the 
representation of Henry Clay and John C. Brecken- 
ridge. When he first entered the House he was placed 
on the Committee on Reconstruction, as he said to me, 
for "the reason tliat the Republicans supposed he 
had no sense," and could give them no trouble. 

But that appointment sowed dragon's teeth, the 
harvest of which the Republican party continued 
to reap as long as Beck lived. He was honest, 



MEN AND THINGS 141 

bold, courageous, and irrepressible. As a speaker, 
be was not eloquent nor charming; his style was 
plain — all ornament was discarded. He was al- 
ways equipped for debate. He was a gallant knight, 
in full armor, standing for the right and against the 
wrong. No vicious legislation escaped his exposure and 
denunciation ; no wise measure ever lacked an advo- 
cate, and the people always found in him a fearless 
champion, and their enemies a dreaded antagonist. 
Barricaded in a fortress of facts and entrenched in 
authorities, he vanquished his assailants — in combina- 
tion or detail — as they chose to attack him. In the 
opinion of the writer, he w^as the strongest debater and 
the wisest practical legislator in public life, during the 
period of his long service in Congress. He was pre- 
cisely the man the exigencies of the times demanded in 
the halls of legislation. 

Samuel Sullivan Cox, Eepresentative in Congress 
from Ohio, for four terms, and from Xew York for 
ten and elected for the eleventh, in many respects 
stands alone in the Legislative history of the United 
States. Personally, he was, perhaps, the best be- 
loved, and at his death, the most universally lamented 
of any man of his time. He was great from boyhood. 
Hereditary revolutionary blood flowed through his 
veins. Upon his graduation, at Brown University, he 
carried off the prizes in history, in poetic criticism and 
in political economy. He was a marvelous man. He 
had travelled in Europe, Asia, Africa and South Amer- 
ica. He had drawn learning and inspiration from the 
temples and tombs of Athens, Rome and Jerusalem ; 



142 MEN AND THINGS 

had stood in the shadow of the pyramids and studied 
the riddle of the Sphjnx, and the dynastic history of 
the Pharoahs ; mused among the ruins of Memphis ; 
and breathed the fragrance of the roses at Damascus. 
He was an unabridged encyclopedia of learning; he 
seemed to me to know everythng — science, art, literature, 
history and political economy — in all their various 
departments — were as familiar as household words — 
and this knowledge included accuracy in the exact 
sciences. 

The authorship of a most brilliant description of a 
sunset, after a storm, caused him to be dubbed with the 
sobriquet, "Sunset" Cox. This was a misnomer — it 
should have been "Sunshine" Cox. Sunset has no 
appropriateness to him, except in the eclipse of the 
grave. Smishine is the proper spnbol of his illustrious 
life and character. 

In high social qualities he was without a peer. It 
was truly said of him that "he had friends everwudiere ; 
enemies nowhere." Malignity and hate had no place 
in his warm, generous heart. He was a living em- 
bodiment of the doctrine of the universal brotherhood 
of man. Armed with great learning and endowed 
with the highest social attributes, he stood on the floor 
of the American House of Representatives for twenty- 
eight years — the fearless, unyielding tribune of the 
common people, of a common country. 

The Hon. Amos Cummings, in his funeral eulogy, 
says : "To the nation he was born here ; it was here 
that his generous, genial, manly spirit had full play; 
here he displayed the patriotic fervor, the exquisite 



MEN AND THINGS 143 

eloquence, the iridescent imagery, tlie peerless dic- 
tion, the penetrating logic, the sparkling humor and 
the delightful disposition that endeared him to the na- 
tion." 

Mr. Cox spoke often, and never without the closest 
and most respectful attention of all parties. His rising 
came to be regarded as the signal of a coming argument 
of power, adocned with gems of literature, sparkling 
wit, classical illustrations and spiced — as occasion 
might require — with bitter sarcasm, withering irony 
and burning invective. The House was never dis- 
appointed in expectation. He had the capacity, greater 
than any orator of ancient or modern times, of combin- 
ing all these, in harmonious proportions, in a speech. 
And yet his spirit was so genial, and style so persua- 
sive, that he never offended an antagonist. His re- 
sources of learning were so great, his knowledge of facts 
so accurate, his style so chaste, his wit and humor so 
bright and exuberant, and his patriotism so pure, that 
he never failed to conciliate the love and admiration 
of his auditors. For three decades his meteoric genius 
and learning made both hemispheres radiant with 
brightness and beauty, which still scintillated in the 
mellow glow of his books and his speeches. 

He entered CongTess at the early age of thirty-two, 
and continued a member for twenty-eight years — 
through the stormiest period of his country's history. In 
nine days after his entrance, he delivered the first 
speech made in the new hall of the House of Repre- 
sentatives. He witnessed the fight on the floor between 
Keith and Grow, when the belligerents of the opposing 



144 MEN AND THINGS 

sectional parties, met in the melee, with Washburn, of 
Illinois, and Potter, of Wisconsin, leading one, and 
Barksdale and Lamar, of Mississippi, the other. 
Through all these years of strife and storm he stood, 
with a wealth of intellectual resources, unequalled ; with 
passions under absolute control, in an armor of integrity 
more invulnerable than the shield of Achilles, the Ivan- 
hoe of the American House of Eepresentatives. 

Lucius Q. C. Lamar was, by one year, the junior of 
Cox in age. They entered Congress at the same time — 
Lamar continuing a member for two terms — until the 
secession of Mississippi. He was a native Georgian 
and graduated at Emory College, under the presidency 
of that illustrious humorist, jurist and divine, x\ugus- 
tus B. Longstreet, whose charming daughter became his 
wife. Mr. Lamar removed to the State of Mississippi, 
was elected adjunct professor of mathematics and assist- 
ant of the celebrated Dr. A. T. Bledsoe, in the uni- 
versity of his adopted State. In 1866 he was elected 
professor of political economy and social science in the 
University of Mississippi, and in 1867 was transferred 
to the professorship of law. He was a member of the 
Forty-third and Forty-fourth Congresses, and elected 
to the United States Senate. He was less vigorous in 
debate than Beck, and less ready and versatile than 
Cox, but was a close student and an intense thinker. 
His range of thought was not so wide as that explored 
by Cox and many others, but it was exhaustive in its 
search for truth upon the subjects which it embraced. 
His style was severely chaste and clear — pruned of 
all surplusage, and in thought, odorous with the oil of 



MEN AND THINGS 145 

the lamp. His professorship of mathematics, political 
economy, social science and law, together with his asso- 
ciation with that metaphysician, Dr. Bledsoe, had doubt- 
less been controlling factors in his mental operations 
and processes. If he did not, in debate, beat down an 
adversary into jelly, with the battle-axe of Richard — 
like Beck ; or hack and slash him to pieces with the 
scimiter of "Saladin" — like Cox, he pierced his most 
vital part with no ''Spear of Itlmriel," and left him 
the bleeding victim of defeat, as more than Eoscoe 
Conkling ascertained. Lamar was less skilled in par- 
liamentary tactics than Randall — less efficient in gen- 
eral practical legislation than Beck or Cox; but, cool, 
clear, cautious — the recognized representative and ex- 
ponent of the chivalry of his section — he was dominant 
in the policies and councils of his party, and com- 
manded the universal respect of the opposite party. He 
was full of resources in emergencies. When John 
Young Brown deliberately rose in his place in the 
House and uttered his terrific "Burking" denunciation 
of Butler (that fell as suddenly and startlingly as the 
shroud of Saladin, appeared at the banquet) it brought 
the Republican members to their feet, in a tempest of 
excitement ; motion followed motion, and pandemonium 
reigned. Beck asked Lamar to take charge of the situa- 
tion. Lamar arose and, with a dignity of manner, in a 
tone of voice and with an expression of face that ex- 
hibited regret, sorrow, sympathy and apology in com- 
bination, in a few suave, deprecating words, allayed 
the storm. The sequel was a mild reprimand of Brown 
by the Speaker. 



146 MEN AND THINGS 

There were many true and able Democrats in the 
Forty-third Congress, less prominent in leadership than 
Randall, Beck, Cox and Lamar. Among these was 
Alexander H. Stephens, whose famous history had, 
even then, been made up and placed on record, and 
who, like Chatham, came in his feebleness and on his 
crutches, to protest against the constitutionality of the 
supplemental Civil Eights Bill. 

The iron-clad Republican party of the ISTorth, 
speckled with a scattering remnant of white renegades 
and free negroes from the South, had an overwhelming 
majority, with the conqueror of Appomattox Presi- 
dent; and every subordinate office in the government, 
occupied by the creatures of bitter partisanship. This 
party sought, in the Forty-third Congress, to accom- 
plish two things : to entrench itself in power by the pas- 
sage of the Force Bill, and to insult and humiliate the 
white people of the South by the passage of the Supple- 
mental Civil Rights Bill. It failed in both objects. 
The Force Bill was defeated and the Civil Rights Bill 
was paralyzed by the blows it received in the Senate 
and House. It not only proved ''a barren sceptre in 
their gi'ip," but it secured a Democratic majority in 
the House in the Forty-fourth Congress. The Ameri- 
can people, in the language of Roosevelt, are for a 
"square deal." They were unwilling that that majority 
should say who should vote or when and how voting 
should be done. Nor were they willing to regulate 
their social life and relations by the standards or tastes 
of Benjamin F. Butler, around whose name, negro 



MEN AND THINGS 147 

troops, the blood of ^Iiimford, and insults to women 
gathered in mingled memory. 

There were able men on both sides in the Senate. 
Among the Republicans appear Oliver P. Morton, John 
Sherman, George F. Edmunds, Matthew Carpenter, 
Henrj M. Teller, Reuben E. Fenton, Roscoe Conkling, 
George S. Boutwell, William B. Allison and John J. 
Ingalls and many other men of decided ability. Charles 
Sumner died during the Forty-third Congress. The 
Democratic party presented in this Senate: Allen G. 
Thurman, Thomas F. Bayard, Eli Saulsbury, Joseph 
E. McDonald, John W. Stevenson, Matthew W. Ran- 
som, William Pinckney Whyte, Thomas Randolph, 
Henry G. Davis, Thomas M. N"orwocd, John B. Gor- 
don and Francis M. Cockerell. Two of the Republi- 
cans, Reuben E. Fenton and Henry M. Teller, were 
liberals of a very high order of ability and statesman- 
ship. The debates in the Senate upon the vital party 
issues were elaborate and exhaustive. Thomas M. Nor- 
wood delivered a speech in the Senate against the Civil 
Rights Bill which attracted much attention, created 
great amusement and enlightened the judgment of the 
people throughout the country. About one-half of the 
speech, which was a long one, was devoted to the ridi- 
cule of the measure, in severe irony, ludicrous illustra- 
tions and blistering invectives; all presented, in an 
elegant, scholarly style. This greatly amused the 
American people. The remaining half of the speech 
was devoted to a masterly argument against its con- 
stitutionality, which Associate Justice Field, of the Su- 
preme Court, pronounced to be the ablest constitutional 



148 MEN AND THINGS 

argument made upon the subject. It will be remem- 
bered that in the House the party managers put for- 
ward a South Carolina negro to reply to Alexander H. 
Stephens' argument against the constitutionality of the 
bill ; so in the Senate they put up to reply to IN'orwood an 
ignorant, slack-twisted, white reconstruction renegade, 
who posed as Republican Senator from Texas, whose 
name was Flannagan. He had been thrust into the 
Senate by the military influence that had put the ne- 
groes Eevels and Bruce, into the Senate from the State 
of Davis, Prentiss, Sharkey and Lamar, 

ISTo minority ever served a country in legislative halls 
with more fidelity and profit than the Democratic 
phalanx in the Forty-third Congress served the people 
of these United States. Their gratitude found expres- 
sion in returning to the House of Eepresentatives of 
the Forty-fourth Congress a majority of Democratic 
members, and the election of Samuel J. Tilden to the 
Presidency. As soon as Tilden's election was ascer- 
tained and unguardedly conceded by Mr. Hayes, the 
Republican playwrights proceeded to put a new play 
on the political boards. This consisted in sending 
"visiting statesmen" to the States of Louisiana, Florida 
and South Carolina (overwhelming Democratic States), 
charged with the duty of working up and manufactur- 
ing charges of fraud in the election and suborning 
witnesses to sustain the charge by perjury. This was 
successfully accomplished. In vain did the Democratic 
House appoint committees "on the recent election in 
South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana," and in vain 
did these committees, or the Democratic majority ascer- 



MEN AND THINGS 149 

tain and report the truth. The "visiting statesmen" 
had fixed things and completed their job. The election 
in these three States was so muddled in charges and 
counter-charges of fraud as to furnish a pretext for in- 
vestigation. As the time approached for counting the 
electoral vote and declaring the result, President Grant 
was very quietly ordering troops from stations and gar- 
risons to the vicinity of the Capitol. It was discov- 
ered that a partisan commission, with a Republican 
majority of one on the commission, was the proper 
authority to do the thing ; that the Constitution declares 
the Congress shall do — count the vote and declare the 
result. And by a sort of unconstitutional legislative 
legerdemain the commission was created. The com- 
mission was composed as follows : 

Associate Justices of the Supreme Court: ISTathan 
Clifford, William Strong, Samuel F. Miller, Stephen 
J. Field, Joseph P. Bradley. 

United States Senators : George F. Edmunds, Oliver 
P. Morton, Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, Allen G. Thur- 
man, Thomas F. Bayard. 

United States Representatives: Henry B. Payne, 
Eppa Hunton, Josiah G. Abbott, James A. Garfield, 
George F. Hoar. 

This commission of able men was created by party 
jugglery and packed with a Republican majority of 
one, to perpetuate and consummate under the forms 
of law the most stupendous fraud of history. It put 
out of the office of President of the United States the 
candidate legally chosen by the people, and into it, the 
candidate rejected by them at the ballot-box. The deter- 



150 ME 2^ AND THINGS 

mination of that packed tribunal was as well known 
before the investigation began, as it was after the de- 
cision was pronounced. The Democratic members 
stood for the truth. The Republican members commit- 
ted the fraud. The evidence taken by the Potter In- 
vestigation Committee of the Forty-fifth Congress fur- 
nishes the proof of this statement. This transaction is 
remitted to future history for its impartial adjudica- 
tion. 

The Forty-fourth Congress seems to have been 
fruitful in transferring legislative functions to com- 
missions. The silver question was referred to a com- 
mission consisting of John P. Jones, George S. Bout- 
well, Louis V. Bogy, Richard P. Bland, Randall L. 
Gibson, Geo. Willard, William S. Groesbeck and Fran- 
cis P. Bowen. 

The election in 1876 resulted in returning to the 
House of Representatives a decided Democratic ma- 
jority. And the changes in the Senate had made the 
parties about equal in strength in that body. But the 
counting in by the commission of the defeated candi- 
date, gave the President to the Republican party, and 
therefore, neither party had control of the policy of the 
government. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

The Foety-fifth Congress. 

The Senators from Georgia in the Forty-fifth Con- 
gress, were John B. Gordon and Benjamin H. Hill. 
The Representatives were: Julian Hartridge, William 
E. Smith, Philip Cook, Henry R. Harris, Milton A. 
Candler, James H. Blount, William H. Felton, Alex- 
ander H. Stephens and Hiram P. Bell. , Samuel J. 
Randall, of Pennsylvania, was elected Speaker, and 
George M. Adams, of Kentucky, Clerk. In the opin- 
ion of Alexander H. Stephens, this Congress, in the 
average ability of its members, outranked any pre- 
vious one in the history of the government. There 
were men already famous, and others who afterwards 
became so, in this Congress. Beck, Lamar, Dawes, 
Blaine and George F. Hoar had been transferred to 
the Senate. In the House were: Alexander H. 
Stephens, Samuel J. Randall, Samuel S. Cox, John H. 
Reagan, Nathaniel P. Banks, James A. Garfield, Wil- 
liam McKinley, Thomas B. Reed, Joseph W. Keifer, 
Roger Q. Mills, Proctor Knott, J. S. C. Blackburn, 
Clarkson N. Potter, William P. Frye, Eugene Hale 
and John Randolph Tucker. Of these, James A. Gar- 
field and William McKinley became Presidents, and 
each met the sad fate of assassination while in office. 
Keifer and Reed became Speakers of the House. Rea- 

151 



152 MEN AND THINGS 

gan, Mills, Hale and Frye, distinguished Senators, the 
last-mentioned acting Vice-President after the death of 
Vice-President Hobart. In addition to these, there 
was a number of men of equal ability but less official 
notoriety, in the House. Of this class, the accom- 
plished Kandolph Tucker, John F. House and Thomas 
Ewing were typical examples. 

Americans have been taught to believe that the 
"golden age" of the Senate was the times in which 
Webster and Choate, Clay and Crittenden, Calhoun 
and Preston, Forsyth and Berrien, Cass, Buchanan, 
Benton, Wright and Grundy crossed knightly lances 
in senatorial jousts. But it may be doubted whether 
that brilliant constellation was not fully equalled by 
the one formed in the Forty-fifth Congress. Con- 
spicuous among the Republicans appeared George F. 
Edmunds, Roscoe Conkling, William B. Allison, 
Henry M. Teller, James Blaine, Matthew Carpenter, 
George F. Hoar, Henry L. Dawes and John J. In- 
galls. And among the Democrats, Allen G. Thur- 
man, Thomas F. Bayard, James B. Beck, John T. 
Morgan, Benjamin H. Hill, Matthew Ransom, John 
B. Gordon, L. Q. C. Lamar, and Augustus H. Gar- 
land. Zebulon Vance and George G. Vest entered the 
Senate later. Oliver P. Morton was dead, and John 
Sherman had entered the Cabinet, as Secretary of the 
Treasury. Among these great men, Allen G. Thurman 
stood, by common concession, primus inter alios, a 
jurist, publicist and statesman of the highest order and 
an ideal American Senator. Bayard was a very strong 
man, with a sublimated ethereal political purity, that 



MEN AND THINGS 153 

sometimes lessened his value as a party ally. Conk- 
ling was richly endowed in mental power, a fluent, 
graceful speaker, of imposing personal appearance, 
tastefully dressed, and formidable in debate. His 
manner was characterized by a hauteur that was little 
less than repulsive. His step was the stride of 
Apollo, called by Blaine (in the spat between them 
in the House), "The strut of the turkey gobbler." His 
manner and bearing reminded me of Pollock's descrip- 
tion of Byron: "He from above descending, stooped 
to touch the loftiest thought, and proudly stooped, as 
though it scarce deserved his verse;" and what Phillips 
said of JSTapoleon, "Grand, gloomy and peculiar, 
he sat upon the throne, a sceptered hermit wrapped 
in the solitude of his originality." He settled ac- 
counts with Blaine, when, in his response to the lat- 
ter's request to make a few speeches in ]S[ew York, in 
support of his candidacy for the Presidency, he stated: 
•'That he had retired from the criminal practice." It 
was said that he declined the Chief-Justiceship of the 
Supreme Court, tendered to him by Grant. He was 
the friend of Grant; and led the 306 delegates, who 
supported Grant's nomination, for a third term. He 
broke with Garfield's administration, controlled by 
Blaine, and resig-ned his seat in the Senate, came to 
political grief, and soon met the fate of all the living. 
Carpenter was a first-class lawyer of splendid phy- 
sique, bold, manly and able ; a true type of the best 
product of the great West. Edmunds was the model 
Republican Senator. He was of mediimi height, thin, 
prematurely gray, with bald head, and very slightly 



154 MEN AND THINGS 

stooping shoulders. He was a charming speaker — 
his style, which was of the conversational order, pure 
as snow and clear as light. He went straight to the 
vital point of a question, cleared it of mists, and 
struck for the truth, as he understood it. He was a 
strong partisan; but a profound jurist, broad-minded 
statesman and faithful Senator. 

Voorhees, "the tall sycamore of the Wabash," was 
the Ciceronian orator of the Senate, and of the country. 
His person, his voice, his taste and his talents — all 
conspired to make him the master of oratory in the 
sense of superb declamation, of fine thought in mag- 
nificently rounded sentences of peerless beauty. His 
appointment to speak was the signal for crowded gal- 
leries, and the guaranty of a delighted audience. Gar- 
land was a plain, quiet, steady man, who was the equal 
of the first constitutional lawyers of the country. Gor- 
don, the most magnetic, in the senate or out, was a 
fluent speaker, ready, skirmishing debater and always 
eloquent. Plis chivalry and high social qualities made 
him a general favorite. Ransom was soldier, states- 
man, orator, and gentleman in harmonious proportions, 
and happy combination. Hoar, developed into one of the 
safest, purest, wisest Republican Senators 'New Eng- 
land ever gave the country. Ingalls was as bright and 
perhaps, erratic, as a comet. He was unique and pic- 
turesque in person, dress, style, manner — in everything. 
He was a brilliant speaker and a dangerous guerilla and 
free lance, in a general free-for-all senatorial intellec- 
tual combat. 

Hill never ranked high for statesmanship, nor for 



MEli AND THINGS 155 

wisdom in party counsels, but he was a superior law- 
yer, a great orator and a matchless debater. Burke 
said of Fox, that ''he was the greatest debater the 
world ever saw." But Hill had not then lived, and 
Burke had not heard him. As a debater, a disputant 
(in my opinion), history furnishes no account of his 
equal. He had in rich abundance all the powers of 
a successful orator and debater. His debate with 
Blaine, on the Amnesty Bill, in the House of Represen- 
tatives, his Davis, Hall and Bush Arbor speeches in 
Atlanta, prove this statement. The writer heard him, 
in Concert Hall in Macon, in 1856, at night, deliver a 
speech in support of Fillmore for President, which 
lost, to at least two persons, the sleep of that night. This 
speech charmed, thrilled and electrilied his audience. T 
happened to state to the late J. H. R. Washington that 
I could not sleep for a moment that night, after hearing 
the speech. He replied that his experience was pre- 
cisely the same. I listened to him for four hours in 
the Supreme Court, in the "Choice murder case" in 
which he sought to reverse the conviction, in the lower 
court on the plea of insanity. He stated his legal prop- 
ositions clearly, and argued them so masterfully that 
I could not see how he could possibly be wrong. But 
the court overruled every proposition upon which he in- 
sisted. He handled facts, existing, with a force that 
would admit of no answer; and improvised such facts 
as were necessary to his purpose with a skill that de- 
fied detection. The country will not soon forget the 
sportive cruelty with which he held Malone writhing 
in the agony of mental crucifixion in the Senate. Hill, 



156 MEN AND THINGS 

at his best surpassed "Fox in debate, Brougham in in- 
vectives, Demosthenes in power, Cicero in style, and ap- 
proached Prentiss in the highest realms of beauty and 
true eloquence." Beck, Blaine , Lamar and Dawes 
have been considered in another chapter. There were 
four members of this Senate now living, who, for thor- 
ough consecration to the public service, ardent patriot- 
ism, constant and laborious work, practical common 
sense, legislative wisdom and length of membership 
have already embalmed themselves in history as 
model statesmen and standard Senators. These 
are Jno. T. Morgan, William B. Allison, Henry M. 
Teller, and Francis M. Cockrell. In the Forty- 
fifth Congress, Georgia was represented on the most 
important committees of the House. Stephens was 
chairman of the Committee on Coinage, Weights and 
Measures, and a member of the Committee on Rules. 
Cook was chairman of the Committee on Public Build- 
ings and Grounds, and on the Committee on Reform in 
the Civil Service; Harris, on Committee of Ways and 
Means, and on Expenditures in the Treasury Depart- 
ment. Blount was on the Committee of Appropria- 
tions. Bell was on the Committee on Banking and 
Currency, and on Education and Labor; Hartridge, 
on the Judiciary, and on Expenditures in the Depart- 
ment of Justice; Candler, on Privileges and Elec 
tions, and on Expenses in the War Department; Fel- 
ton, on Commerce, and on Mines and Mining. W. E. 
Smith, was on Public Lands, on Patents, and on the 
Joint Committee, on the Census. The great questions 
before this Congress were the Tariff, Currency, Silver 



MEN AND THINGS 157 

Coinage, Repeal of the Specie Resumption Act, and 
the investigation of the Presidential Election Frauds. 
On the currency and silver questions, the discussion 
was protracted, able and exhaustive. Stephens, Har- 
ris, Felton and Bell participated in this discussion. 
The Free Coinage Silver Bill — known as the "Bland 
Bill" — was passed. Mr. Bland was a small, quiet, 
modest man. He had mined in Colorado and Utah. 
He farmed in Missouri, and was a plain, practical, 
sensible man, thinking much and speaking little. He 
fought courageously for years for the restoration of 
silver as a basic money of final redemption with gold, 
at 16 to 1, and finally won. His triumph was turned 
into defeat by the veto of President Hayes — dictated, 
doubtless, by his great secretary, John Sherman. The 
government was suffering with a virulent attack of the 
Ohio political "grippe." Ohio men filled the offices 
of President, General of the Army^ Chief Justice of 
the Supreme Court, and Secretary of the Treas-iry. 
It has always been supposed that the sword, the purse 
and the law, were instruments of power in controlling 
the affairs of government. This instance does not ex- 
plode that supposition. Mr. Hayes was an affable, ac- 
commodating gentleman of high moral character, nom- 
inated by accident, and counted in by fraud, with no 
expectation of a second term. Of mediocre ability, 
among the third class of statesmen, he turned over to 
his Secretary of the Treasury, who was looking to the 
success, the management of his administrative pol- 
icy. Sherman was unquestionably the greatest master 
of finance in the couiitry. He was said to be among 



158 MEN AND THINGS 

those who made fortunes by its manipulations. He stood 
with the creditors of the government, and capitalists of 
the country for the "Wall" and Lombard streets, theo- 
ries of finance, which was to change the government 
debt from a currency, to a coin debt, eliminate silver 
from coinage, destroying its debt-paying capacity, thus 
converting a currency into a gold debt; and, then, re- 
sume specie payments. The South and West were so 
clamorous for the double standard, and the nomination 
for the succession impending, that another bill of Mr. 
Bland for free coinage of silver, — which passed in the 
House — was amended in the Senate on the motion of 
Senator Allison; and finally passed both houses and 
became known as the "Bland-Allison Act." In general 
terms this act authorized the Secretary of the Treasury 
to purchase a limited amount of silver bullion, monthly, 
and coin the same at the ratio of sixteen of silver to one 
of gold. This act continued in force, with good results, 
until Cleveland's administration, under Wall street in- 
fluence, secured its repeal, divided the Democratic party 
and entrenched the Eepublicans in power, indefinitely. 
The Kepublican National Convention met, and the 
great secretary failed to reach the guerdon so long, and 
so arduously sought and another Ohio man won. Ohio 
has been fruitful in great men. She has produced at 
least one woman who merits the highest niche in the 
Temple of Fame. In simple, plain elegance in dress 
and manners, in ardent devotion to the duties of wife- 
hood, in the charmed circle of home-life, in dignity of 
bearing, in court life, in s\anpathetic response to ap- 
peals for help, and in thorough consecration to the 



MEN AN D THIN 08 159 

pious duties of the religion of Christianity, Mrs. Lucy 
Hayes is the finest exemplar of the virtues of American 
womanhood that ever occupied the White House or il- 
lustrated the civilization of the nineteenth century. It 
is reassuring to recognize in her the typical representa- 
tion of a very large majority of our countrywomen. 
There are perhaps, some blessings, in the control of the 
different departments of government, by opposite par- 
ties. If but little good legislation can be secured, much 
bad may be prevented, while such as is absolutely nec- 
essary may be assured. During this Congress there 
were many measures, some good, others bad, presented 
and pressed, which failed. A New York engraving and 
printing bank note company, had presented in the 
House, a bill to abolish the "Bureau of Engraving and 
Printing." It was referred to the committee on Bank- 
ing and Currency. Geo. S. Bout well, ex-Secretary of the 
Treasury, was employed by the company to represent 
it before the committee, which he did, in an elaborate 
argument. Upon my motion, Edward McPherson, the 
accomplished chief of the Bureau, was invited to reply ; 
which he did in a masterly way. It was simply a job 
to destroy the Bureau and rob the government by a con- 
tract to do its engraving and printing. On my motion 
a private speculative job was defeated, in which, I have 
always, felt that I rendered the public some service. 
As a recognition of this service, the chairman of the 
committee appointed me the Congressional member of 
a committee of Treasury Experts raised to determine 
the relative merits of the work done by steam, and the 
hand-press. I presided over this committee and wrote 



160 MEN AND THINGS 

its report. As chairman of a sub-committee, I reported 
favorably to the Committee on Education and Labor, a 
bill to distribute for education among the States, upon 
the basis of illiteracy, the proceeds of the sale of the 
public lands. This beneficent measure failed. 

ISTine members of the House had been members of the 
Confederate Congi"ess. They were Alexander H. Ste- 
phens, John H. Reagan, Otho R. Singleton, Robert A. 
Hatcher, J. D. C. Adkins, John T. Goode, William E. 
Smith, Hiram P. Bell and Julian Hartridge. Hart- 
ridge died in Washington while a member, deeply la- 
mented by Congress and the country. Stephens had 
been vice-president of the Confederacy, and Reagan 
postmaster-general of both the Provisional and perma- 
nent governments. Reagan and Ex-Gov. Lubbuck 
were with President Davis when he was captured. 
They had entered into a covenant to personally stand 
by him to the last, and share his fate whatever it might 
be; and nobly did these true and knightly men keep 
that agreement. In all the elements that go to make 
up a pure, noble, great man, John H. Reagan had fev/ 
equals and no superior in the age in which he lived. 
The Texas delegation was a strong one — Reagan, 
Throckmorton, Culberson, Mills, Giddings, Willie and 
Shliecher. Shliecher died at his post during his term. 
I wish to emphasize the statement, that the legal maxim 
"expressio unicus, exclusio alterius," has no application 
to my reference to men or my failure to refer to them. 
If conditions would allow, it would afford me great 
pleasure to put on record my appreciation of the ability 
of inost of the Senators and Representatives of the 



MEN AND THINGS 161 

Forty-fifth Congress. They were, in the main, men of 
great ability, high moral character and unquestioned 
patriotism. Some of them became famous in history. 
Many of them have rendered valuable service to their 
country and their kind, and all of them did their duty 
as they understood it. A great number of them have 
crossed the silent river, and found what the survivors 
will never know until they rejoin them in another and 
a different state of existence. In the storm and con- 
flict of opinion and policy of Congressional life, there 
is the sunshine of genial companionships, valued 
friendships and pleasant and tender memories. 

There is one colossal figure of these times that es- 
pecially claims consideration. Ulysses S. Grant was 
born in 1822 in the State of Ohio. He was educated 
at West Point, brevetted captain for gallantry in the 
Mexican War, and a few years after, resigned his com- 
mission in the Army. He engaged in farming in Mis- 
souri and later in the leather business in Illinois — in 
neither of which was he regarded as successful. He 
was a strong, quiet, modest, silent man who enjoyed a 
cigar, was fond of horses, of which he was an excellent 
judge, and was said to be a connoisseur in the qualities 
of whiskey. When the Civil War commenced, he or- 
ganized a company of volunteers, of which he A^as 
elected captain. He w^as soon Brigadier General of vol- 
unteers ; captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson ; 
won the second day's battle of Shiloh, after losing the 
first; captured Vicksburg; was appointed Major-Gen- 
eral in the regular army and placed in eonrmjand of 
the Mississippi Division. In March, 1864, he was ap- 



162 MEl^ AND THINGS 

pointed Lieutenant-General of the Armies of the Uni- 
ted States. He engaged Lee in battle at the Wilder- 
ness ; sought to flank Lee and reach Richmond ; was de- 
feated at Spottsylvania, Xorth Anna and Cold Harbor. 
He crossed the James, finally surrounded Lee, and 
compelled his surrender, xVpril 9th, 1865. In 1866, 
he was made General of the Armies of the United 
States. He was twice elected president, traveled around 
the world, the feted and flattered guest of kings and em- 
perors. He lost his fortune in a commercial bubble, 
wrote his book and died 23d July, 1885, His coun- 
trymen gave him the grandest state funeral ever ac- 
corded to an American citizen. The meteoric splendor 
of this greatness in the world's popular judgment of 
human greatness, can only be accounted for upon the 
coincidence of two facts — the inherent qualities of the 
man and the opportunity his environments gave for 
their development. Grant's high qualities were com- 
mon sense, equanimity of temper, constancy of purpose, 
force of will, fearlessness of consequences and magna- 
nimity of spirit. His environments were exactly suited 
to their development, to the fullest extent. He had 
opened the Mississippi River and divided the Confed- 
eracy. He was at the head of the Union armies witli 
the confidence of liis government, supported by re- 
sources of men and means, without limit. Lee had 
successively defeated McClellan, Burnside, Pope 
and Hooker in pitched battles. Relying upon num- 
bers, he encountered Lee at the "Wilderness." The 
result of this battle determined Grant's policy in con- 



MEN AND THINGS 163 

ducting the war. This policy was the exhaustion of 
the Confederacy's resources of men and supplies. 
Grant knew that conscription had robbed the cradle 
and the grave — that when the last Confederate disap- 
peared the Union would still have an army. Hence 
he defeated every effort to exchange prisoners: with 
him, every Confederate kept out of the army was as 
good as dead, and could not be replaced; while the 
Union could lose its prisoners and still its ranks 
be filled. There was little genius but mu?h 
mathematics in this logic. Elvers of blood and hun- 
dreds of slain in battle, and the suffering and death of 
thousands in prison, did not count. This policy pur- 
sued by Grant for one year carried him from the de- 
feat of the Wilderness to the victory of Appomattox. 
As president of the United States, he appointed his 
friends and kinfolks to office; communicated his 
views on public questions in clear, brief messages, and 
allowed his party in Congress to manage public af- 
fairs pretty much as it pleased. He gave all his 
personal and official influence to the pacification of a 
disturbed country. He closed his letter accepting the 
nomination for the presidency with the sententious 
sentence: "Let us have peace." His official, 
civil life was devoted to that end. He had mingled 
in enough strife. He showed his magnanimity of soul 
at the surrender, and in the promptness and spirit with 
which he rebuked the threatened indictment and ar- 
rest of Lee in violation of its terms. 



164 MEN AND THINGS 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Disappointed Ambition. 
There were eight distinguished statesmen who paid 
the penalty of ambition in the disappointment of de- 
sire, and the mortification of defeat, in their aspira- 
tions for the presidency — Calhoun, Clay, Cass, Sew- 
ard, Douglass, Chase, Blaine and Sherman. Cal- 
houn's breach with Jackson and doctrine of nullifica- 
tion eliminated him from among the possibilities for 
that high office. Clay lost by the fatal blunder of op- 
position to the annexation of Texas. Cass' hopes per- 
ished in the blaze of Buena Vista; Lincoln's debate 
with Douglass side-tracked Seward; Appomattox put 
Grant between Chase and his goal; Kansas and Ne- 
braska placed Douglass on the retired list. The bal- 
lot-box disposed of Blaine. Sherman could never 
reach the nomination station in the race. When the 
political angel stirred the waters of the pool, another 
stepped in. All these men had been representatives in 
the House, had won the Senatorial toga and with the 
exception of Douglass had been cabinet ministers. 
Several of them had been Governors of States; two of 
them Speaker of the House ; one Vice-president, another 
Chief Justice of Supreme Court, and another foreign 
minister. All these men wore the highest honors, save 
the presidency, the people or the government could pos* 
sibly bestow. 

It would seem that all this ought to satisfy human 
ambition and fully fill the loftiest human aspiration. 
Yet these men, like the youth bearing the banner with 
the strange device, "Excelsior," sought to climb the 



MEN AND THINGS 165 

Alpine heights of power and only grasped a frozen 
shroud. They seem to have forgotten that there was 
but a step between the conquest of Gaul and the dagger 
of Brutus — the sun of Austerlitz and the eclipse of 
Waterloo. Whence this insatiable hungering and 
thirsting in the human soul — for honor, power and 
fame ? Is it the silent assertion of its conscious im- 
mortality, wandering like the lost pleiad in search of 
its original center ? Or, is it that the stain of sin has 
diverted its powers from, the enjoyment of the spiritual 
and eternal, to the material and perishing things of 
the Universe ? It dominates now, and has dominated 
men and women — to a greater or less degi-ee in all ages, 
classes and conditions of the race, through all time. It 
is to be met and reckoned with in human affairs. And 
yet the history of the wisest, the richest and the most 
powerful of kings has put it on record, that "All is 
vanity and vexation of spirit." Webster desired the 
presidency, but did not seek it, and perhaps, enter- 
tained no hope of attaining it. Horace Greely both 
desired and sought it. It is amazing that he, for a 
moment, should have indulged the thought or enter- 
tained the slightest hope of defeating Grant. And 
yet the earnestness with which he prosecuted his cam- 
paign, shows the intensity of his desire and the hope 
of his success in securing the coveted prize. An eye- 
witness assures us that, returning to his office, certain 
of defeat, and finding scattered over it burlesque car- 
toons by "ISTast" (ridiculing his candidacy) he put his 
face in his hands upon his desk, burst into tears and 
said in anguish, "Is this the reward of my life of la- 



166 ME2f AND THINGS 

bor?" and literally died of a broken heart, and was 
borne to the silence that stills the tumult of strife and 
withers the laurels of ambition. What these great 
men suffered in chagrin, disappointment and mortifi- 
cation at defeat, can not be kno%vn. How much of real 
joy and happiness they sacrificed can only be conjec- 
tured. It is a fact that most of them died compara- 
tively young; Calhoun at 68; Sherman at 69; Chase 
at 65; Blaine at 63; Greely at 61; Douglass at 48. 
Only Cass, Clay and Seward lived beyond the "three- 
score and ten." There are at least two men in Amer- 
ican history who attained the highest official honors 
without seeking them, and discharged their duties with 
an ability and fidelity that will make them famous 
through all the ages. These are George Washington 
and Jefferson Davis. They responded to emergency 
calls for public service ; and imselfishly gave it. In the 
one case, success made a victor, in the other, defeat, a 
victim ; in both, the best illustration of true greatness, 
the unselfish service of others. 

Our theory of a double government, general and lo- 
cal, national and State, under a written constitution, 
defining and specifying the powers of each, is a beau- 
tiful — a Utopian theory. It assumes that those in con- 
trol will exercise only constitutional powers, and will 
strictly observe constitutional limitations; that the 
people will subordinate personal to public interests. 
If this were true the government would be a Utopia. 
But in applying the theory in practice, it encounters 
the passions, selfishness, avarice and ambition of both 
those who govern and those who are governed with a di- 



MEN AND THINGS 167 

versity of interest and opinion, difBcnlt to harmon- 
ize and reconcile. And hence, self-government will 
always continue an experiment. The fact that one 
generation has governed itself, does not prove that the 
next one will. '"Eternal vigilance is the price of lib- 
erty." With all our progress, development and power 
— the first century of our experiment is not altogether 
reassuring. The jSTorthern States were astonished 
that the Southern States would secede ; the Southern 
people were surprised that the government would at- 
tempt to hold the States together by force. But the un- 
expected happened in both cases, and a stupendous war 
resulted. Three presidents have been assassinated. 
And the theory applied to existing conditions fails to 
materialize into the Utopia. 

Ours is the best system of government ever devised 
by human wisdom. The ISTational Government un- 
dertakes the regulation of our affairs and relations 
with foreign governments to protect and secure to the 
States their rights in the exercise and enjoyment of 
the right of self-government and home rule. But in a 
government, thus complex in its form and nature — 
with a domain so large, resources so vast, and a popula- 
tion so numerous, — differences of opinion, antagonism 
in interest and collisions of passion will inevitably ex- 
ist. These conditions constantly present new ques- 
tions of public policy for the solution of statesmanship. 
The sole instrument of power is the ballot. The suc- 
cess of this experiment of self-government depends 
upon the virtue, intelligence and patriotism of the 
electors, and the wisdom, capacity and faithfulness 



168 MEN AND THINGS 

of public officials. The honors and emoluments of 
public office are open alike to all, and this is equality 
and therefore right. But while it invites aspiring pa- 
triots to desire office as a means of serving the public, 
it presents to the ambitious demagogues, the bane of 
republics, the temptation to seek office for selfish pur- 
poses. The danger is that the people do not always 
wisely discriminate between them. They do not appre- 
ciate the oft-repeated truth, that public office is a public 
trust, to be exercised alone for the public benefit. If 
all the people of this great country could or would prop- 
erly appreciate a government that secures the inalien- 
able rights of man, the proper limitations of liberty by 
law, the perfect equality of all before the law, the equal 
distribution of taxation and the duties of citizenship, 
and an open track for the race of life ; they would con- 
secrate themselves to its preservation and transmission, 
unimpaired, to posterity. The blessing of liberty and 
good government is the product of thousands of years 
of struggle, suffering, sacrifice and blood. And to 
maintain, preserve and perpetuate it, requires virtue, 
vigilance, wisdom and patriotism. The United States 
of America is the temple that holds the Ark of her 
Covenant, and shrine of her worship. Let her kneeling 
devotees forever keep her altar fires aflame. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Social Pkoblems. 

There are certain social and economic problems no\s' 
confronting the government and people of the United 
States which clamor for solution. Among the least of 
these is the race problem. The effort already made by 
law to solve it upon the basis of equality, is a demon- 
strated failure. The attempt now being made to dis- 
pose of it by literary education, will soon prove to be 
another. The proposition and practice of taxing the 
labor and property of the country to train free negroes 
in idleness and crime, and inspire them with an aspira- 
tion for equality they can never reach, will be aban- 
doned when its folly and injustice become generally un- 
derstood. Various theories have been propounded for 
the disposition of this question — such as their general 
distribution throughout the United States; their colo- 
nization in this country; their removal to Africa, etc. 
So far as the colored race is concerned, its duly and 
its interest is to earn a living by honest labor. Its 
capital consists in its muscle and knowledge of agri- 
culture. That plan which puts the negro to work in 
the ground for his livelihood, solves at least, the ma- 
terialistic branch of this problem. The race question 
as it relates to the African, has very much the charac- 
teristics of a tempest in a teapot. The Southern peo- 

169 



170 ME2J AND THINGS 

pie may be relied on to take care of it. They princi- 
pally have to deal with it. They understand it. They 
know how to manage it and will find ways to meet its 
emergencies in the future. There are questions of 
graver import than this, pressing for solution. Promi- 
nent among these is the divorce question. At last the 
country seems to have become aroused at the danger to 
social order arising from the numberless and shameless 
dissolutions of the sacred bonds of wedlock sanctioned 
by law. This is not surprising when it is remembered 
that marriage is the God-ordained method of propaga- 
ting, preserving and perpetuating the race. The fam- 
ily is the primary and basic institution upon which so- 
ciety in all its forms and organizations rests. Mar- 
riage is the indispensable initiative of the family. Re- 
move, impair or destroy this foundation and the super- 
structure must crumble and perish in ruins. The 
recklessness with which marriage is contracted and the 
facility with which it is dissolved has justly alarmed 
Christians, patriots and philanthropists. This is a 
question within the control of law. Indeed its evils 
result from bad law. Its remedy is simple. It only 
requires a change in the law of the grounds upon which, 
or the cause for which a divorce may be granted. 
Whatever difficulty may exist in securing the desired 
change in the law, will be found in harmonizing the 
public sentiments of the different States, upon the 
ground upon which it should be granted. To consider 
this question the governors of the several States have 
been invited to meet in consultation. Bar associations. 



MEN AND THINGS 



171 



legislatures, church councils and organized bodies of 
various other kinds, have given expression of their 
wish for the suppression of this evil, and the restora- 
tion of marriage to its proper purity and sanctitv. 
There is one cause for which Christianity gives it sanc- 
tion. It would seem that a Christian nation might 
agree upon that cause. It ih impossible to secure exact 
statistics of the number of divorces granted each year 
in the United States. But judging from the best 
sources of information available, the number in propor- 
tion to the number of marriages is appalling. "Mod- 
ern Women," August 1905, publishes the following ta- 
ble of marriages and divorces in thirteen cities of the 
United States in 1902 : 





Marriages 


Divorces 


Proportion 


New York, 


33,447 


817 


I in 40 


Cliicago, 


16,684 


1,808 


I iu 9 


Boston, 


6,312 


446 


1 in 14 


San Francisco, 


3,656 


847 


I in 4 


Philadelphia, 


9,912 


492 


I in 20 


St. Louis, 


5,959 


573 


I in 10 


Cleveland, 


3,199 


454 


I in 7 


Indianapolis, 


2, 60S 


471 


I in 5 


Kansas Oity, 


1,704 


420 


I in 4 


Los Angeles, 


1,818 


405 


I in 4 


Seattle, 


1,351 


323 


I in 4 


Dallas, 


1,291 


210 


I in 5 


Chattanooga, 


550 


103 


I in 5 



This proportion of divorces to marriages, applied 
to the entire United States, would give for one year in 
this country, 35,846 divorces. That this is below the 
true number, which, judging from the statements of 
the public press, seems to be rapidly increasing, there 



172 MEN AND THINGS 

is but little reason to doubt, 35,846 divorces means that 
number of wrecked homes, and twice that number of 
ruined lives — to say nothing of the children and fami- 
lies who suffer in consequence of the sin. But this is 
the least evil. To weaken and destroy the sacredness 
and obligations of the marriage relation is to sap and 
subvert our social, civil and religious system and in- 
stitutions, and paralyze and ultimately destroy our 
Christian civilization. It is the training of pure and 
happy homes, that makes good men and women, and 
great and prosperous nations. It is the home where 
reverence for law and obedience to its supremacy is 
taught and learned. If the wicked reign of passion 
and crime is to be controlled or prevented, its purity 
and sanctity must be preserved. 

Another great problem with which the American gov- 
ernment and people are now dealing is the conflict 
between capital and labor. That these two agents 
of all material progTess which are the compliments of 
each other should paralyze their potentialities in a con- 
flict which produces want, loss, bad feeling and 
bloodshed, instead of uniting and co-operating in serv- 
ing the best results to both, is folly for which lan- 
guage has no adequate expression. It must be con- 
ceded that each is entitled to perfect equality in rights ; 
that each is absolutely and equally indispensable to 
the other and to society. Then why not eliminate 
all antagonism and controversy between them and ob- 
viate the numerous evils that flow from their strife and 
conflict? Capital has the undoubted right to legal 
protection in the enjoyment of its legitimate proflts. 



MEN AND THINGS 173 

Labor has precisely the same right to protection 
in the earnings and value of its toil. There is in- 
herently no hostility between them, but on the con- 
trary, an identity of interest that demands alliance and 
co-operation. Their relations and rights can be regu- 
lated by contract and enforced by law. When capital 
— formed into combinations to rob labor — and labor 
imions united to wrong capital — produce war between 
them, after both parties and the public suffer much 
(like they do in all wars) the military power of the 
government is invoked to suppress it. The frequency 
of this state of affairs in the United States, is a pessimis- 
tic prophecy. And the time has come, when the means 
of prevention should be found and applied. 

Another problem pressing for attention and so- 
lution iipon the American people is the question of 
immigration. The Puritans and Cavaliers and their 
descendants, — combining the best elements of both, set- 
tled this country, and framed and established its in- 
stitutions. They have brought its progress and civili- 
zation to their present state, and they are the only 
safe conservators of these institutions. They hold 
them in sacred trust for posterity. Our example, like 
a Pharos, has giiided France, Mexico and the South 
American Republics into the light of free representa- 
tive systems of governments and liberalized the monar- 
chial systems of Europe. Our distinguished racial ca- 
pabilities and excellencies must be preserved from de- 
terioration. Immigration should be restricted to those 
of good moral character, who are eligible to naturaliza- 
tion, and come to discharge the duties of good citizen- 



174 MEN AND THING 8 

ship, as well as to enjoy the blessings of good govern- 
ment and who wish to assimilate with our people and in- 
stitutions. We have neither room nor use for the Laz- 
zaroni of the effete despotisms of Europe and Asia. 
The preservation of our system rests with the race that 
created it. 

Among the problems engaging public attention none 
is more vital to the republic than the purification of 
the ballot. The ballot is the expression of the original 
inherent sovereignty of the people. It is the founda- 
tion of power. Corrupt the fountain and the stream 
necessarily becomes polluted. That the ballot has be- 
come in many places and under different circumstances 
an article of commerce — of bargain and sale, — must be 
admitted by all familiar with the facts of current his- 
tory. By this means the popular choice of rulers has 
been defeated. Virtue, intelligence and patriotism os- 
tracized and saloon rowdies manipulated by ward-heel- 
ers and county demagogues have chosen men to make 
and administer law, who barter the franchise, rights and 
interests of the people for bribes. It is astonishing that 
the American people continue so quiet under such 
wrongs, so fraught with destruction to their highest in- 
terests. This astonishment is increased when it is re- 
membered that the remedy is so obvious and simple. 
There are many methods of purifying the ballot by law. 
It may be done by guards placed around the place of 
voting ; by amending and enforcing the law, prescribing 
the qualifications of voters ; by increasing and vigor- 
ously enforcing the penalties against the crime of illegal 
voting, even to the disfranchisement of the criminal. A 



MEN AND THINGS 175 

concentrated public opinion can speedily secure this re- 
form so imperiously demanded by the highest consider- 
ations of the public interest. Will the people rise to 
the height of the argument ? Or, will they, by their 
apathy and indifference like "the base Judean, cast a 
pearl away, richer, than all his tribes ?" 

There is another j)roblem before us, with which the 
govermnent has undertaken to deal, and, which it is 
ardently hoped, it may be able to righteously solve in 
ultimate suppression. This is the combination of cap- 
ital known as "Trusts," formed for the purpose of de- 
stroying competition, monopolizing the trade and fixing 
the price in certain articles of necessity to the public, 
in which they deal. In a word, it is a combination to 
dictate the price the people must pay for things indis- 
pensable to them. In all the essential elements of 
morals they stand upon the same basis of the highway- 
man and the train-wrecker. They force the people's 
money from them contrary to their will, and without 
compensation. These trusts are public robbers, and 
should be summarily placed under the ban of public 
opinion and of law. This insufferable greed and ava- 
rice diverts capital from its beneficence in the prosecu- 
tion of legitimate enterprises, profitable to the owner, 
and useful to the public, and converts it into war upon 
commerce and plunder of the people. The President 
of the United States deserves the gratitude of the na- 
tion for his efforts to free it from this blood-sucking 
octopus. In a world of movement, change, activity, 
progress and retrograde, there will always be problems 
pressing for solution upon the race. 



CHAPTEE XX. 

WoMAx IN War. 

(Address of H. P. Bell at the Confederate Reunion, at 
Marietta, Oa.) 

Confederate Comrades, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The highest expression of patriotism is the offering 
of one's life upon the altar of his country, in the de- 
fense of its honor, its liberty and its flag. This expres- 
sion every true Confederate soldier has freely and vol- 
untarily given. Confederate soldiers had no agency in 
causing the late Civil War, not creating the conditions 
which made it inevitable. They dealt with it as an 
existing fact. When their country was invaded and 
volunteers were called for they responded promptly. 
They left home, farm, office, business, wife, children — 
all that was dear to them, and submitted their blood and 
life to the chance of battle. They endured heat and 
cold, hunger and thirst, fatigue and toil, sickness and 
suffering, danger and death ; and all this without a 
murmur. They did their duty always and everywhere 
with unfaltering fidelity. For four long and bloody 
years, on more than five hundred battlefields, they hold 
at bay more than thrice their number, and these stood, 
until overwhelming numbers and resources, depleted 
their ranks to a corporal's guard by exhaustion and 

176 



MEN AND THINGS 177 

death. They enriched the soil of their country with 
their blood, and its history with their valor. "When sur- 
render became inevitable, they acquiesced; and fought 
the more difBcult conquest of self in overcoming hos- 
tility to their enemies. The sacred and shattered rem- 
nant of this glorious army returned to their despoiled 
homes to struggle with poverty, support their families, 
repair their fortunes and discharge the duties of good 
citizenship. Thus engaged they were confronted ])y 
an effort of the Federal government to subordinate them 
to the political domination of their recently emanci- 
pated slaves; and for a period of five years struggled 
against the monstrous crime of reconstruction. They 
finally succeeded in placing their State governments un- 
der white Democratic control; and defeated the nefa- 
rious scheme to destroy white supremacy in the South. 
In all the calamitous national vicissitudes, all the Con- 
federate soldiers did their full duty, faithfully, nobly, 
heroically. But one duty remains to be performed by 
them. That duty is the erection, by them, of a monu- 
ment to commemorate the patriotism of the glorious 
women of the Confederacy. It is a shame to us that 
this duty has been so long neglected. And we have bur 
little time in which to perform it. It is upon us, a 
duty of the highest obligation. 

If woman's hand first, "Forth reaching, plucked that 
forbidden fruit, whose mortal taste brought death into 
the world and all our woe," yet, nobly has she wrought 
and patiently has she suffered in atonement for the dis- 
aster that blighted the bloom of Eden. She has in 
every age of this world's history identified her poten- 



178 MEN AND THINGS 

tialities for good with all human affairs, in all the de- 
partments of human endeavor, from the least interest of 
an individual to the highest concerns of the race. It 
was the genius of a woman that preserved in the frail 
craft of floating bulrushes, on the 'Nile, the world's 
greatest leader and lawgiver. It was the minstrelsy of 
a woman that celebrated that leader's triumph on the 
hither side of the sea. It was a brave woman, who, at the 
peril of her life, dared to approach the Persian throne 
in the absence of the outstretched scepter to secure the 
repeal of an unchangeable law, relieve a nation from 
the condemnation of death and bring to condign pun- 
ishment the vilest criminal of history. It was the strat- 
^y of a beautiful widow that dispersed the Assyrian 
arniy, cast the bloody head of the commander at the 
feet of the despairing Sanhedrim, and saved from de- 
struction the beleaguered capital. It was a Spartan 
mother, who, looking upon her son, pointed to his shield 
and said : "Come with it when the battle's won, or on 
it from the field." In the bloody butchery of Saragossa, 
the beautiful Agostina issued from the convent, clad in 
white, kissing her cross, and mounting the breach with 
lighted match, at which the last gunner had fallen, 
poured from his silent gun a storm of destruction upou 
the assailants, dictated the reply of Palafox, "war to the 
knife," to Leferre's demand for surrender and defeated 
the conquerors of Marengo and Austerlitz. When the 
commander of Carthage, against the protest of his wife, 
surrendered to Scipio, she cursed his treason, gathered 
her children into her arms and with them plunged into 



MEN AND THINGS 179 

the burning temple and perished with her city, rather 
than witness the triumph of the Komans. 

It was a gentle maiden, that poured the contents of 
the broken alabaster box upon the head of the weary 
ISTazarene, made nineteen centuries fragrant with 
the odor of love, and embalmed in historic immortality 
the name of Mary of Bethany. It was a group of sor- 
row-stricken women who lingered latest at the Cross and 
appeared earliest at the sepulcher. It was a woman 
who caught at the empty tomb, from angelic lips, the 
thrilling whisper, "He is not here. He is risen," and 
first proclaimed the truth of the resurrection, that ca- 
bles the broken heart of humanity to the cherished hope 
of immortality. It is thus seen that in all human af- 
fairs, the agency and influence of woman has been man- 
ifest. In civil government, in religious and social sys- 
tems, in science, art and literature, and in the tragic 
events of the history of the race, she has appeared at the 
front and acted her part. And yet, her most potential 
activities have been exerted in quietude and silence, 
without the emblazonry of publications on the pages of 
history. This is eminently true of her relations to, and 
service in the late war between the States. With the 
united opposition of Southern women, defense against 
invasion would have been impossible. With their luke- 
warm support it would have been brief and feeble. 
But with their sympathy, their service, their sacrifice 
and their suffering, it was protracted, heroic, glorious, 
Upon these grounds their claims to monumental com- 
memoration rest. These queens of love, regnant in 
the realm of home, surrendered all that was most dear 



180 MEN AND THINGS 

to them, in their devotion to their country. The de- 
claration of war was the signal to the women in city, 
town, and country to seek new fields of effort, industry 
and economy, in preparation for the impending strug- 
gle. They bore increased burdens of labor without a 
murmur, submitted to the less of comforts, without re- 
pining, and performed duty with a fidelity that would 
admit no excuse. After providing for the management 
and support for the family at home, they found time to 
hasten to the side of sick, wounded and dying loved ones 
on distant battlefields ; to accomplish which, they disre- 
garded military orders, baffled the interference of 
guards and overcame the protests of conductors. They 
threaded the aisles of hospitals in ministrations of 
mercy, relief to the suffering and solace to the dying; 
and love and grief for both. They consecrated their 
souls and bodies, a living sacrifice of unselfish serv- 
ice to others with a devotion worthy of Eastern devo- 
tees. They suffered want without complaint and con- 
cealed their grief in silent tears. 

"The maid who binds her warrior's sash, 

And smiling, all her pain dissembles. 
The while, beneath a drooping lash, 

A starry tear-drop hangs and trembles. 
Though Heaven alone, records the tear. 

And fame may never know her story, 
Her heart has shed a drop as dear, 

As ever dewed the fields of glory. 

The wife who girds her husband's sword 
'Mid little ones, who weep and wonder, 



MEN AND THINGS 181 

Then bravely speaks the cheering word, 
Although her heart be rent asunder, 

Doomed, in her nightly dreams to hear 
The bolts of war that round him rattle 

Has shed as sacred blood as ere 

Was poured upon the plains of battle. 

The mother who conceals her grief 

As to her heart, her son she presses 
Then, speaks the few brave words and brief. 

Kissing the patriot brow she blesses ; 
With no one but her secret God, 

To know the grief that weighs upon her. 
Sheds holy blood, as e'er the sod 

Received on freedom's field of honor." 

The labors they performed, the privations they en- 
dured and the sacrifices they made, were trifles com- 
pared to the agony they suffered. This, speech has no 
power to express, and art, no skill to portray. Family 
circles broken, loved ones in unmarked graves on 
battlefields in distant States; and scarred and broken 
hearts bleeding in desolated homes ; it seemed that 
they had exhausted their resources of labor and love. 
Not so. They were quick to discover and occupy new 
fields for the exhibition of their enterprise and affec- 
tion. When they could no longer aid, still they could 
honor their dead heroes. This they did in their efforts 
to build monuments to their memory, of marble, and 
pay tribute to their graves, in flowers. And, descend- 
ing from mother to daughter their work still goes on. 



182 ME 2^ AND THINGS 

Once every year in tlie sweet spring-time, these pil- 
grims come to their Mecca with their offering, and 
dead valor reposes 

"Under the roses the blue. 
Under the lilies the gray." 

Pagan and Christian alike, through all the ages have 
commemorated the virtues, services and achievements 
of their great men and women in monumental shafts, 
storied urn and magnificent mausoleums. The pencil, 
guided by genius; and the chisel, under the same mys- 
terious force, have transmitted their features and 
forms in breathless beauty on marble and blushing col- 
ors on canvas to perpetuate their glory, challenge the 
admiration and stimulate to imitation the generations 
to come after them. I appeal this day to the gratitude, 
the honor anji chivalry of Confederate heroes to dis- 
charge their only remaining duty ; to build a monimient 
to the memory of the glorious Confederate women who 
aided with their hands, encouraged with their smiles, 
comforted with their prayers and blessed them with 
their love. Our mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts, 
of Confederate times won the bravest battle that ever 
was fought. 

The bravest battle that ever was fought. 
Shall I tell you where ; and when ; 

On the maps of the world, you will find it not 
'Twas fought by the mother s of men. 

N'ay, not with cannon nor battle-shot. 
With sword or nobler pen, 



MEN AND THINGS 183 

Nay not with eloquent word or thought 
From mouths of wonderful men. 

But deep in a walled- up woman's heart 

Of woman that would not yield, 
But bravely, silently bore her part. 

Lo ! There was that battlefield. 

No marshalling shout, no bivouac song, 

No banners to gleam and wave. 
But oh ! these battles they last so long 

From babyhood to the grave. 

And faithful still, as a bridge of stars 

She fights in her walled-up-town ; 
Fight on and on, through the endless years, 

Then silent, unseen, goes down. 

Oh ye, with banner and battle-shot 

And soldiers to shout and praise, 
I t^U you the kingliest battles fought, 

Are fought in these silent ways. 

O, spotless woman, in a world of shame, 

"With grand and splendid scorn 
Go back to God as white as you came 

The kino-liest warrior born." 



^t3^ 



The part taken by the women of the Confederacy in 
the war between the States is preserved only in fading 
memories and perishing hearts. These frail witnesses 
will soon fail to bear their testimony to the greatness 
of their character and the lesson of their lives. History 
and literature devote their attention mainly to the man- 



184 MEN AND THINGS 

agement of campaigns, the result of battles and the crit- 
icism of commanders. The great battle of the women 
at home has gone without a historian. The knightly 
chieftain of the Confederacy has honored himself in 
dedicating his great book: "The Rise and Fall of the 
Confederate States of America," to his countrywomen. 
But the wilderness of material furnished to the poet, 
the painter and the sculptor has remained unexplored 
by them. Four decades have elapsed since Appomat- 
tox rang down the curtain upon the bloody tragedy; 
and still the privilege of expressing our gratitude has 
been neglected and the consciousness of duty discharged 
lost. Many, perhaps, most of these noble w^omen have 
crossed the silent river. Many of them who did their 
duty and blushed at fame, have gone from humble 
homes to unmarked graves, and rest from their labors 
but their works follow them. Their daughters trained, 
by their instruction, and inspired by their example, 
have taken up the work of sentiment and love which 
they inaugurated; and thus, their work is perpetuated. 
It may be well enough to honor maids of honor and 
sponsors in reunion parades, frolics and balls ; but it is 
a poor tribute to the service, sorrow, sacrifice and suf- 
ferings of the heroines "chosen in the furnace of afflic- 
tion" in the fiery ordeal of war. Can surviving vete- 
rans afford to blur their record with ingratitude so 
great? Are they willing to close the record of their 
lives without a lasting and permanent expression of ad- 
miration and love for the women who shed luster upon 
all the virtues of their self in the darkest hours of na- 
tional calamity? Whatever reasons of poverty, misfor- 



MEN AND THINGS 185 

tune or other things, may have hitherto been urged as 
an excuse for the neglect of this duty, can no longer be 
accepted. Prosperity universally abounds all over this 
Heaven-favored country. Then let the surviving vete- 
rans crown their claim to knighthood by erecting on the 
soil they sanctified with their blood, a monument to the 
memory of their countrywomen. When this shall have 
been done, their duty to country and kind will have 
been performed, and like Simeon, they will be ready 
to depart in peace. Let them build of the most endur- 
ing granite or purest marble ; and let it rise to a height 
proportionate to the virtues it commemorates, which 
will make it the loftiest on the planet. Place upon its 
summit her faultless stature, molded in bronze by some 
Mills or Crawford or chiseled in marble by some mod- 
ern Praxiteles or Canova. Plant her feet upon the con- 
quered cross ; and on her head the victor's crown. Morn- 
ing's earliest blushes would kiss from her lips the sweet- 
est dews of- night, and twilight's last lingering rays 
would mingle with the charm of her smile until the 
stars of heaven mustered to stand nightly sentinel, 
around her beauty and her glory. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Reminiscences of Some Famous Peeacheks. 

The religion of a people is a force not to be ignored 
in the matter of government and civilization. And this 
is true, whether it is established by law, as in England, 
or prohibited from such establishment, as in the United 
States. In the former it is legal, in the latter it is 
moral force. The utterance, "My kingdom is not of 
this world," would seem to repudiate the alliance of 
church and state; and discountenance the union of the 
kingdom of Christ, with the kingdoms of the world. 
The ministers of the religion of Christianity are sup- 
posed to teach its doctrines correctly, illustrate, in their 
lives, its virtues truly and to advance its interests 
wisely. Diversity in the power and degree of gifts ob- 
tains, among them, as among other classes and profes- 
sions. Some have received ten talents and some one. I 
have enjoyed the privilege of hearing some of the distin- 
guished preachers of my time. Dr. Lovick Pierce said 
to the writer, that he never heard a poor sermon. I 
have enjoyed that high privilege, on more occasions 
than one. Most of these great and good men have passed 
away. Their biographies have never been written, 
published and spread. There are a few, the fragrance 
of whose memory still lingers in tradition only — who33 
life and work have not been written, why not, is unac- 

186 



MEN AND THINGS 187 

coimtable, to those familiar with their merits. Among 
these may be mentioned, William J. Parks, John W. 
Glenn, Jesse Boring, Samuel Anthony, Jackson P. Tur- 
ner, Gadwell J. Pearce, and William M. Crumley. 
These men were all Northeast Georgians. A radius 
of fifty miles, from a common center, would include 
the section from which all sprung. They were contem- 
poraries. They were all self-educated ; not one of them 
had been in college. They were all brought up in the 
country and on the farm. All of them (except Jackson 
P. Turner, who died in middle life) lived to advanced 
age, and fell at last with armor on. This constellation 
planted the Methodist Church in JSTorth Georgia more 
than half a century ago. They differed widely in the 
personal elements of power. But they were a unit in 
the possession of power. Parks was a Franklin County 
farmer of small means and limited education and of un- 
prepossessing personal appearance. He joined the 
South Carolina Conference in the first quarter of the 
nineteenth century, and soon became a distinguished 
leader in the Methodist Church. He owes this distinc- 
tion to two qualities: integrity and common sense. 
Plain, practical and sensible, he treated and dealt with 
all questions in the concrete. At the General Confer- 
ence at ISTashville, the Presiding Bishop, forgetting or 
pretending to forget his name for the moment, referred 
to him as the "brother from Georgia, who always says 
something when he speaks." 

John Walker Glenn w^as a Jackson County farmer. 
He had been a local preacher for some years when he 
joined the Georgia Conference. He at once took a high 



188 MEN AND THINGS 

stand in this body of strong men. He was fearless, 
aggressive, able and eloquent. He was an ardent be- 
liever in the dogmas of American Theology and de- 
fended them with the skill of a master. At his funeral 
service at Griffin, at the Annual Conference in 1868, 
Dr. Lovick Pierce said: "John W. Glenn was the 
brightest star in the galaxy of the Georgia Conference." 
These two great men, more than any others — than all 
others — planted the Methodist Church in ISTorth Geor- 
gia. As soon as the Indians were removed, Cherokee, 
Georgia was formed into a Presiding Elders' District 
over which they were among the first to preside. 

Jesse Boring (unlike Parks and Glenn) joined the 
Conference at Charleston, while Georgia was a part of 
the South Carolina Conference, when he was quite a 
young man. He was a native of Jackson County, Geor- 
gia, and, no doubt, a sheaf gathered from the sowing of 
Parks and Glenn. His first charge was a mission (I 
think Pensacola) distant from his home, 300 miles. 
Previous to his joining the Conference, Parks — being 
the pastor at the church of which my parents were mem- 
bers — put up Boring to preach, who, after announcing 
his text, stood awhile in great confusion, and said, fin- 
ally, "Unless you all repent and believe, you will be 
damned." Parks had to come to the rescue and preach 
without expectation or the usual preparation. They 
dined that day at my father's house. At the table 
Parks said to Boring, "Young man, you will never 
catch me in such a trap again." Whatever criticism 
may be made of Boring's sermon, it must be admitted 
that it had the soul of wit, brevity, and that it com- 



MEN AND THINGS 189 

pressed into very few words a vast amount of Gospel. 
This same young man lived to win a triumph of power 
and eloquence that has never been equalled on this con- 
tinent. When Presiding Elder of the Mobile district, 
at a country campmeeting not far from the city, on 
Sunday, at 11 o'clock, he preached on the "Judgment," 
he captured the multitude at the commencement. As 
he argued its certainty, its necessity, and its finality, 
the people in the congregation began to rise to their 
feet, lean forward, listening in rapt attention with a 
stillness and awe that reacted upon the speaker and in- 
creased the tide of power he poured upon them. In 
his wonderful strain of overmastering eloquence when 
he reached the blast of the Judgment Trumpet, that 
called the quick and the dead from earth and sea, the 
vast multitude fled in every direction from the stand, as 
if it had been stricken by lightning and closed the serv- 
ice of that hour. Dr. Boring, though below the aver- 
age size, was of impressive presence, his complexion 
dark and cadaverous, his nose Roman, his head massive 
and finely rounded and balanced. His figure, though 
thin, was erect. His movements were easy, graceful 
and dignified; his enunciation clear and distinct; 
his pronunciation accurately correct; his emphasis 
perfect. His conversation and public discourse had 
all the marks of punctuation properly placed. He was 
a master of logic and rhetoric. His voice, which was 
thoroughly cultivated, had a peculiar, weird tone, 
which increased its power. As a preacher in. the sense 
of developing, explaining and enforcing the truth of a 
text, he was superior to any man I ever heard, and I 



190 MEN AND THINGS 

have heard the most distinguished preachers of the Pres- 
byterian, the Baptist, the Episcopal and the Methodist 
Churches. Dr. Boring gi-aduated in the Science of 
Medicine, and held a professorship for some years in a 
medical college. He was many times a member of the 
General Conference; was a member in 1844, at Xew 
York, when the Church divided on the slavery question. 
He was a missionary to California in the early fifties. 
His greatest work was securing the establishment of 
the orphans' home as an institution of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church South. This measure he originated 
and carried through the Conference at Memphis in 
1868 against both indifference and opposition. He un- 
dertook to raise, by voluntary contribution, the funds 
for the Georgia home at a time when the people were in 
great poverty, and harassed with reconstruction 
troubles. His appeals in behalf of the orphans of dead 
Confederates — ^never surpassed in pathos, power and 
eloquence — bore fruit, in the prosperous orphans' 
homes in the various Conferences of the Southern Meth- 
odist Church, to say nothing of similar homes it incited 
other great churches to provide. He lived for more 
than fourscore years and devoted his splendid talents 
during his life to the service of religion and humanity. 
And a great church, full of fine w^riters with an im- 
mense publishing house has never put on permanent 
record, the achievements of his great life and service 
for the benefit of others, but left them to fade out in 
traditional memories. 

Jackson P. Turner was born in Gwinnett County of 
poor parentage; joined the Georgia Conference without 



MEN AND THINGS 191 

education, in 1842 ; served the Dahlonega Circuit as 
junior preacher and in less than two years became the 
Presiding Elder of the district, a thorough scholar, and 
took his place among the ablest preachers in the State. 
He died a young man. His death eclipsed the hopes of 
a most useful and splendid career. 

William M. Crumley was a native of Habersham 
County. Like Turner, he was brought up in poverty 
and without educational advantages. He joined the 
Conference in early life and devoted himself unreserv- 
edly to the Christian ministry. He was in many re- 
spects a marvelous man, though never attained distinc- 
tion in scholarship. His gentleness of spirit, suavity of 
manner, brilliancy of imagination and refinement of 
sentiment, added to his knowledge of the Scriptures 
and his power of simple illustration, gave to his ser- 
mons a power and pathos of persuasive eloquence 
rarely equalled, that was fruitful of trophies for the 
Cross. ISTo congregation ever became weary under his 
sermons, and no charge he served, ever desired a 
change of pastors. 

Gadwell J. Pearce was a Gwinnett County man, not 
distinguished for piety in early life, but for high pow- 
ers of intellect. He was bright, fearless and aggressive. 
After his conversion he was licensed to preach, joined 
the Conference and rose rapidly to usefulness and dis- 
tinction. He was Presiding Elder, filled various agen- 
cies, and represented his Conference in the General 
Conference. He was of fine personal presence and 
bearing. As a speaker, he was distinguished for his 



192 MEN AND THINGS 

originality and style, as vrell as for the force and 
uniqueness of his illustrations. 

Samuel Anthony, another Gwinnett County man, 
has been justly embalmed in historic fame by the fa- 
cile pen of Bishop Fitzgerald, in his "Centennial 
Cameos." An attempt to add to the Bishop's tribute 
would only mar its beauty and detract from its force. 

There were two other men in l^orth Georgia in the 
forties, for a few years, who left a deep and lasting 
impression upon the public mind from their power 
in the pulpit. These were Eobert J. Cowart and Rus- 
sell Reneau. Cowart was a middle Georgian. He joined 
the Conference when a young man with an inferior edu- 
cation. In 1843, at the age of 29, he was appointed 
preacher in charge of the Marietta Circuit, Avith W. H. 
Evans as Junior, and Peyton P. Smith Presiding El- 
der. This Circuit embraced the counties of Cobb, 
Cherokee, Milton and the Southern portion of Forsyth. 
This was before the Church changed its policy and 
abolished week-day preaching. There were twenty- 
five or thirty churches in the charge and preaching at 
each church once in every two weeks, so that each 
preacher made the round of his Circuit once a month. 
It so happened that Cowart's appointment was at a 
near-by church on the day of the plantation fire referred 
to in a former chapter. After preaching a magnificent 
sermon, he came in the afternoon to the aid of the writer 
in fighting fire. A few years after, we were associated 
in the defense of Musgrove, a Baptist preacher, 
charged with stealing a negro, in Forsyth superior 
court. (It is due to the memory of Musgrove and to the 



MEN AND THINGS 193 

Baptist Church, to say he was acquitted.) Physically, 
intellectually and socially, he was a magnificent speci- 
men of manhood ; six feet and two inches in height, 
with an avoirdupois of two hundred and twenty, and in- 
tellectual endowments in harmonious proportion. Ap- 
proaching middle life, full of vigor, with constant 
reading and speaking every day, his great gifts devel- 
oped rapidly into a masterful control of the thought?, 
passions and emotions of his auditors. His mind was 
rapid in its operations; his perception quick; his vo- 
cabulary aesthetic and extensive; his emotions sympa- 
thetic, and his power of description unrivalled. He 
was a powerful, eloquent and charming preacher. The 
Conference appointed him for the following year, to 
Jacksonville, Fla. He declined to go ; located and read 
law under direction of the late Gov. Joseph E. Brown. 
He was admitted to the bar and soon after v/as ap- 
pointed by Governor Johnson, attorney for the Western 
and Atlantic Railway. He was afterward judge of the 
City Court of Atlanta. Most of his friends thought 
he made a mistake in leaving the Conference and r(}tir- 
ing from the active ministry. 

Russell Reneau came from the Holstein to the Geor- 
gia Conference, and was appointed Presiding Elder 
of the Cherokee District in 1845. This district in- 
cluded nearly all of ISTorth Georgia. He had been 
early in life a school teacher, preacher and Presiding 
Elder in the Holstein Conference. He was, in person, 
below medium height, inclined to obesity in middle 
life, and in the full maturity of his intellectual pc»wer. 
He was a writer of power and author of an unpublished 



194 MEN AND THINGS 

English Grammar. He was a thoroughly trained de- 
bater ; a fine English scholar and deeply read in polemic 
theology. He had been brought up in the pure atmos- 
phere and surrounded by the magnificent scenery of 
East Tennessee, at the time and in the section so stirred 
by the theological controversies between Brownlow, 
Posey and Koss. He published a very able book on 
the much-discussed and hackneyed subject of baptism. 
He kept his glove in the arena, on all the dogmas in 
dispute, between the Armenians and Calvinists. When 
he came to the Cherokee District the county was new; 
had been settled but a few years, and settled mainly by 
members of the Baptist and Methodist, whose adher- 
ents were approximately equal in numbers. There 
was less intelligence and liberality in sentimen then 
than now. Each party was anxious to recruit its ranks : 
and the pulpit dealt largely in polemics. Sometimes 
the more ardent champions of the respective creeds 
would meet in debate, with the result always that each 
side claimed the victory. These conditions were pre- 
cisely such as put him upon his metal and at his best, 
in the display of his JSTapoleonic power, in theological 
debate. His discussion was absolutely free from secta- 
rian malignity. His mother was a Baptist, and often 
in the midst of an overwhelming argument against Cal- 
vinism, he would allude to it, and pay her piety and 
love a tribute of affection that would melt his congrega- 
tion to tears. With him it was a conscientious duty to 
discuss, explain and defend the doctrines of polity of his 
church. His reason for indulging so largely in contro- 
versy was the necessity of instructing his people in the 



MEN AND THINGS 195 

doctrines of Christianity and impressing them with the 
importance of seeking for the truth. It must not be in 
ferred that his pulpit efforts always dealt with or in the- 
ological polemics. He was a masterful preacher of the 
Gospel. He had, in a more eminent degree tlian any 
man I ever heard, the power of compressing a whole 
discourse into a single expression or sentence. In this 
power he resembled and transcended N'apoleon. His 
speech was in short, clear, strong, sententious sentences 
— never of dubious meaning ; his voice of great volume, 
finely trained and controlled, was occasionally start- 
ling as a bugle blast. It was my fortune to hear the 
last sermon (I think) he preached in Georgia. It 
was at 11 o'clock on Sunday, at a campmeeting on 
the ground now occupied by the town of Alpharetta, 
Milton County, in the early fifties. His text was 
Psalm XXIII. It was his last appearance before a large 
concourse of his personal friends and admirers, as the 
year was fading into autumn, and death. The envi- 
ronments stirred the emotions of speaker and audience. 
His lips had been touched with a live coal from off the 
altar. His sermon was an orderly, lucid exposition of 
the Psalm. Towards the conclusion in a voice clear as 
crystal, and tremulous with emotion, with great tears 
dripping from his cheeks, he drew a contrast between 
the value of matter and spirit, the perishable and im- 
mortal, in a tide of eloquence that was perhaps never 
equalled, certainly never surpassed. Soon after this 
he went to the West. I heard that he died after preach- 
ing for six hours consecutively, at Fort Smith, Arkan- 
sas. 



196 MEN AND THINGS 

The lives of none of these great men, so far as I am 
advised, have ever been vj^ritten and published. It is 
singular that they have not been. Two other great 
Georgia preachers have fared better at the hands of 
their contemporaries. The great lives and labors of 
Dr. Lovick Pierce and Bishop George F. Pierce have 
been preserved in biography — as was most meet — and 
transmitted in permanent form, to all future time. 

Lumpkin camp-ground, located in Dawson County, 
on the road connecting Gumming and Dahlonega and 
nearly equi-distant between them, and easily accessible 
from Gainesville and Dawsonville, has been for more 
than fifty years perhaps, the largest and most popular 
camp-ground in the State. The people from the four 
towns named, and from the surrounding densely settled 
sections, annually tented in great numbers. The multi- 
tudes attending, especially on Sunday, would number 
four or five thousand. In 1867 or 1868, Bishop Pierce 
attended the meeting and preached on Sunday, to a vast 
concourse. His text was a verse from the 6th chapter of 
John. His theme was: "Christ the Bread of Life." 
He was at his best, in vigorous health and in the perfect 
maturity and strength of his marvelous powers. The 
surroundings were inspiring, the crowd from town 
and country immense. In the open air, with weather 
conditions delightful, the inspiration of the Holy Sab- 
bath was upon the thoughts and hearts of the people. I 
occupied a seat between Ex.-Gov. Joseph E. Brown and 
Maj. Raymond Sanford — both ardent Baptists — in an 
eligible position for seeing and hearing the preacher. 
For one hour and a half he held the enthralled attention 



MEN AND THINGS 197 

of thousands in a quietness as still as death, during 
such a sermon as he only could preach. When he con- 
cluded, Governor Brown turned to me with great tears 
rolling down his cheeks, and said, "that is the grand- 
est man on this continent/' Major Sanford concurred 
with him. To those who never heard the Bishop undi^r 
similar circumstances, I can convey no adequate de- 
scription ; to those who have, it is imnecessary to try. 

The contribution made to progress, civilization and 
Christianity by these men, and those of their class else- 
where, can never be measured, and will never be appre- 
ciated. The boys, college-called to the ministry in 
these days, may part their hair in the middle more artis- 
tically, perform gymnastic gyrations more gi-acefully, 
pitch, kick and catch balls more skillfully and talk 
more learnedly of teams, innings, and umpires thar 
these great men; but it is gravely doubted whether 
they approach more closely the Throne of Mercy above 
or the hearts of the people below. 



CHAPTEK XXII. 

Russo-Japanese War — Peesidekt Roosevelt — 

Peace. 

In 1904 Russia and Japan engaged in war. It con- 
tinued for eighteen months. Russia put into her army 
and navy 840,000 men of which she lost 375,000 — at 
a cost in money and property of $1,075,000,000. This 
includes sixty-eight ships of war. The army and navy 
of Japan mustered 700,000 men, of which number 
250,000 were lost, with a loss in money and property, 
including twenty-four warships, of $475,000,000. 
The total number engaged was 1,540,000 men. The 
total cost was $1,550,000,000. This was a prodigal 
expenditure of men and means for an eighteen months' 
war. This vast sum does not include the incidental 
losses of the belligerents. Both parties distinctly an- 
nounced that they did not desire the advice or inter- 
ference of other powers; that they would settle the 
controversy in their own way and to suit themselves. 
Early in the summer of 1905, nearly a million of men 
in. Manchuria confronted each other, in strongly forti- 
fied lines, from the hills of which frowned heavy guns 
numbered by the thousands. Battalions, brigades and 
divisions were manoeuvering for advantage in position, 

198 



ME2J AND THINGS 199 

Tinder the eye of able and skillful leaders, preparatory 
for a decisive battle. The powers, the press and the 
people of Christendom were watching and listening with 
anxious solicitude, for news of the impending shock. 
In the fearful stillness, presaging the storm, one great 
man has the coura^, the capacity, the patriotism and 
the humanity to step to the front with the olive branch 
of peace — Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United 
States — ten thousand miles from the scene of strife, ad- 
dresses a similar note to each of the belligerents, sug- 
gesting to them an effort to secure peace by negotiation. 
He addressed a note at the same time to the great pow- 
ers of Europe, informing them of what he had done, 
his desire for peace and invoking their co-operation 
with him in his effort to secure it. The belligerents, 
after manifesting diplomatic indifference (but both 
extremely anxious to get out of their trouble) finally 
agreed to advance far enough to make an effort to as- 
certain upon what terms it would be proposed and con- 
sented to appoint commissioners for that purpose. 
Some difficulty arose as to the place of the meeting. 
Each party objected to the nominations of the other. 
Washington City, United States, was finally selected as 
the place for the meeting. To promote the comfort 
and quiet of the plenipotentiaries, the President ar- 
ranged for the meeting at Portsmouth, N. H., he 
spending the summer in his cottage at Sagamore Hill, 
in easy communication with the plenipotentiaries. M. 
DeWitte, on the part of Russia, and Baron Komura, 
with their respective suites and proper credentials, 



200 MEN AND THINGS 

promptly met and earnestly entered upon the business 
in band. Tbey were eacb in daily communication 
witb tbeir respective governments, and in frequent 
separate correspondence witb President Eoosevelt, who 
was in constant communication tbrougb bis embassa- 
dors, witb tbe Emperors of Kussia and Japan. All the 
effort made, and tbe labor bestowed, and tbe anxiety 
by tbe President in untangling knots, suggesting con- 
cessions and barmonizing conflicts, will perbaps re- 
main unknown to all but bimself. At last, on tbe 5th 
day of September, 1905, tbe treaty was signed and tbe 
civilized world drew one long, free, full breath of re- 
lief. 

That President Roosevelt alone achieved this victory 
of peace will never be questioned. Emperors, Kings, 
Presidents, statesmen, diplomats and publicists through- 
out tbe world have honored and congratulated him for 
it, and tbe great heart of the great common people re- 
sponded, 

"Blessed are the peacemakers." 

After the complete destruction of tbe Russian navy 
in the battle of the Straits, while eacb party bad a pow- 
erful army in hostile array, eacb claiming the certainty 
of triumph, but trembling with tbe apprehension of de- 
feat, the quick intuitive perception of President Roose- 
velt and tbe promptness in action for which he is so 
distinguished, discovered tbe opportune and critical 
moment for his interposition and tbe suggestion of nego- 
tiation for peace. It was a bold and tactful display of 



MEN AND THINGS 201 

statesmanship that closed at once the bloodiest and most 
destructive war of modern times, save one, and placed 
the United States government, of which he was tho 
head, in the van of the great powers of the world in 
power and influence in the control of international af- 
fairs. It made him the first man of the age, and glori- 
fied his country in the annals of humanity. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Legislatures of 1898 and 1900. Ix the House 

AND IN THE SeNATE. 

Legislation is a high function. It is the exercise of 
the supreme power of the State. Its dignity, gravity 
and importance are not always properly estimated. To 
a capable, conscientious legislator, it involves the drudg- 
ery of labor, constancy and clearness of thought, and 
honesty and integrity of purpose. Those men who re- 
gard it a frolic in which they may have a good time 
are wholly unworthy of the high trust. Contrary to 
expectations and he, may add, to his desire, the 
w-riter found himself a member of the House of Rep- 
resentatives in 1898 and 1899 ; and of the Senate in 
1900 and 1901. John D. Little of Muscogee County 
was elected speaker and John T. Boifeuillet of Bibb, 
clerk of the House in 1898. These gentlemen possessed 
high qualifications for the offices to which they were 
chosen. There was a large number of the members 
above the average in ability; many of them of superior 
practical wisdom in statesmanship. I am restrained 
from expressing my opinion of them by name for tsvo 
reasons. First, it might be misconstrued into dispar- 
agement of other worthy men. Second, since the ex- 
ample of Adam, Iscariot and Arnold, I believe in the 
possibility of falling from gi-ace, and that it is better 

202 



MEN AND THINGS 203 

to crown the victor when he reaches the goal at the end 
of the race. Let it suffice to say, that association with 
these able and partiotic gentlemen resulted in forming 
warm personal friendships, the tender memory of which 
will end only with life. The routine of tax and appro- 
priation bills engaged, mainly, the attention of this 
Legislature. There was no great question of overshad- 
owing magnitude, enlisting popular attention before it. 
The nearest approach to it was the Willingliam prohibi- 
tion bill. This bill was thoroughly and ably debated. 
In the discussion, licensed saloons, blind tigers, local 
option, dispensaries, etc., came in for a large share of 
consideration. The bill passed in the House but was 
defeated in the Senate. Some questions of importance 
in the direction of reforms were raised and considered ; 
but few measures of much public interest were finally 
enacted into law. An interesting episode in the history 
of this legislature was the visit of President McKinley 
to the capital of Georgia. He was accompanied by 
Generals Chaffee, Lawton, Wheeler, Lieutenant Hobson 
and others. He was formally received by the General 
Assembly in the representative hall. It was in his 
speech on this occasion that he captured the South, by 
saying that the "time had come for the government to 
take charge of the preservation of Confederate soldiers' 
graves." He held a public reception in the rotunda of 
the Capitol and made a most favorable impression upon 
the vast throngs that saw and heard him ; and who little 
dreamed of the deplorable fate that awaited him at 
Buffalo. 

In 1900 I was returned as the senator from the Thir- 



204 MEN AND THINGS 

tj-ninth ' district, of which I was the first senator after 
its organization forty years previous. Of this Senate 
Clark Howell was chosen president, and Charles iN^orth- 
en, both of Fulton, secretary; and both without oppo- 
sition. These gentlemen were popular, able and effi- 
cient ofiicers. I was chairman of the committee on 
constitutional amendments and chairman of a special 
joint-committee of both Houses, appointed to consider 
and report on constitutional amendments generally. A 
bill was pending providing for calling a constitutional 
convention. This joint-committee was raised to secure 
such amendments as were deemed desirable, and thus 
avoid the expense of a convention. After much consid- 
eration and labor the committee reported a bill provid- 
ing for ten vital amendments, which, if adopted, would 
have made the government of Georgia the best State 
government in the Union. Eight of them were adopted 
by the Senate. The bill failed in the House. All great 
reforms in peaceful times come slowly. The bane of 
legislation is that there is too much immature and local 
legislation. It has always seemed to me that this should 
be suggested by wisdom and necessity resulting from the 
experience of society. Our constitution undertakes ':o 
secure uniformity in general legislation. It is the vast 
amount of local legislation and the looseness and in- 
accuracy in the language in which bills are written, as 
well as frequent change by amendment, with different 
judicial constructions, that creates confusion and uncer- 
tainty in our law. This legislature re-elected Augustus 
O. Bacon to the United States Senate. And it was dur- 
ing its session that Admiral Winfield S. Schley visited 



MEN AND THINGS 205 

the Capital. He was received by the Legislature in 
joint session in the Representative Hall. Fresh from 
the victory of Santiago and the idol of the popular heart 
the public affection for him was augmented by the ef- 
fort of the Republican party to pluck his laurels for 
the brow of Admiral Sampson. He made an admirable 
speech, saying among other things "that there was 
glory enough in Santiago for all; and that men who 
stood behind the gims and in front of furnaces were en- 
titled to their full share." That gallant Georgian, Lieu- 
tenant Thomas Brumby, who stood by Dewey's side on 
the bridge of the Olympia in the battle of Manila, was 
of Schley's party. A short time thereafter his remains 
were brought to Atlanta ; and Georgia gave to Brumby 
a magnificent State funeral. "The paths of glory lead 
but to the grave." 

In compliance with the joint resolutions of the two 
Houses, I delivered the address on the Secession Con- 
vention of Georgia, which appears in this volume. With 
this Legislature closed my very humble public service. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

LiFE^ Service and Chaeacter of James Edward 
Oglethorpe, the Founder of Georgia. 

True greatness consists in the unselfish service of 
others. Tried by this test, James Edward Oglethorpe 
was truly a great man. He was born in 1696, and 
matriculated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 
1714, at the age of 18. The same year upon the recom- 
mendation of Marlborough, he was appointed aide de 
camp to Prince Eugene of Savoy, under whom he 
greatly distinguished himself for military skill and per- 
sonal courage in the siege of Belgrade in the war with 
the Turks. His training under such captains as Marl- 
borough and Eugene, made him an accomplished mili- 
tary officer at the age of twenty-one years. In 1722, at 
the age of twenty-six, he was elected a member of Par- 
liament. He was one of the very few young men who 
enter public life with the sole purpose of rendering 
public service instead of promoting personal ambitions. 

Of high family connections, a large endowment of 
intellectual powers, and inheriting from a deceased 
brother an ample fortune, the blandishments, splendors, 
and allurements of court-life on the one hand, and labor, 
anxiety, sacrifice and suffering for the unfortunate of 
his race, on the other, were before him. He chose the 
latter like another Moses. Impressed with the inhu- 

206 



MEN AND THINGS 207 

manity of the British laws, which inflicted hopeless im- 
prisonment upon helpless insolvents, and the brutal op- 
pression of British jailors, he determined, if possible, 
to secure the reformation of the former and the punish- 
ment of the latter. He was appointed chairman of a 
committee raised by the House of Commons, to visit 
the prisons, to examine into the condition of the inmates 
and suggest means of reform. This committee in three 
separate reports, disclosed a condition of injustice, op- 
pression and suffering that aroused the public indigna- 
tion for the outrage against humanity and civilization. 
Honest, unfortunate men, who had failed in business 
of various kinds, possessing tender sensibilities, refined 
sentiments and high character, were crowded into filthy 
and loathsome dungeons with criminals of the lowest 
and vilest type, surrounded with stench and vermin to 
languish out a miserable existence of horrible cruelty 
and suffering. The English law then made no provision 
for the relief of insolvents from perpetual imprison- 
ment. To Oglethorpe belongs the credit of its reforma- 
tion. He conceived the scheme of compromising the 
debts, securing to the creditors such amounts as the 
friends of the debtors could be induced to raise; and 
the release of the debtors from prison on the condition 
that they would emigrate to America and plant a col- 
ony. After much effort and anxiety on the part of 
Oglethorpe, this wise plan was adopted. On the 9th 
day of June, 1732, King George II., granted to certain 
trustees, of whom Oglethorpe was one, a charter to th.3 
tract of land situated between the Savannah and Alta- 
maha rivers. The proprietary of South Carolina hav- 



208 ME II AND THINGS 

ing surrendered all claim to it, for the reason that the 
new colony would be a protection to South Carolina 
against incursions from hostile Indians, this place was 
selected for the colony. To promote this enterprise 
Parliament donated £10,000, and institutions and in- 
dividuals contributed liberally. The emigTants spent 
their last Sabbath in England at Milton, on the 
Thames, They attended divine service in a body. On 
the 17th day of JSTovember, 1732, the galley Anne, of 
200-tons burden, commanded by Captain Thomas Ogle- 
thorpe with about one hunlred and thirty persons, sailed 
to seek a home in the wilderness. This frail craft bore 
across the waves the fortimes of empire. The young- 
est son of Richard Cannon, aged eight months, and 
the youngest son of Robert Clark, died on the passage 
and found a grave at the bottom of the sea. The pathos 
of their burial at sea is too deep and intense for ex- 
pression. On the 13th of January, 1733, the Anne 
dropped her anchor outside the bar at Charleston har- 
bor. On their arrival, the first thing they did was to 
assemble the immigrants and engage in devout thanks- 
giving to Almighty God for their preservation and pro- 
tection in the passage. They were most hospitably re- 
ceived at Charleston. After spending a few restful 
days they sailed, touching at Port Royal for Yamma- 
craw blufP on the Savannah River, which Oglethorpe^ 
assisted by Col. William Bull, had previously marked 
out for their future home, ^yhere they landed early in 
Pebruary, 1733 and laid the foundation of the beauti- 
ful city of Savannah, and the great State of Georgia. 
Here, under a charter securing to them the rights of 



MEN AND THINGS 209 

British subjects, in a wilderness filled with savage In- 
dians and wild beasts, these noble and heroic spirits re- 
commenced the battle of life which they had fought and 
lost in the old world. In their early struggles they seem 
to have been marvelonsly protected against the triple 
bane of colonies — famine, pestilence and massacre. For 
this exemption they were doubtless indebted to the gra- 
cious providence of God and the wise- leadership of 
Oglethorpe. Oglethorpe's policy of justice and fair 
dealing conciliated the confidence anl secured the 
friendship of the Indians. Caution, exercise and tem- 
perance preserved the health ; and a genial climate, fer- 
tile soil and active industry supplied the wants of the 
colonists. No colonists were ever animated by a loftier 
purpose or followed a wiser leader. The device, "Non 
sibi sed alliis," indicates the object of this enterprise 
and the character and purpose of Oglethorpe. The du- 
ties of his position were grave, complex, numerous, oner- 
ous and responsible. An accurate account of his transac- 
tions was to be made to the trustees. The improvements 
of the settlement were to be conducted under his super- 
vision. DisagTeements and disputes among the colonists 
were to be adjusted by him ; complaints of the Indians 
for inflicted wrongs by the whites were to be heard and 
the wrongs redressed ; the health and morals of the 
people to be conserved; the boundary between the 
grant in the charter and Florida to be clearly ascei'- 
tained ; the movements of the ever malignant, treach- 
erous and avaricious Spaniards to be constantly watched. 
All these duties were discharged by him with an ability 
and fidelitv that illustrates his character and estab- 



t5 



210 MEN AND THINGS 

lishes his claim to a high place in the list of unselfish 
philanthropists. These duties were performed at the 
right time and in the best way, with the utmost order 
and system. In his first letter to the trustees, after 
reaching his destination, among other things he said, 
"I am so taken up in looking after a hundred necessary 
things that I write now, short, but shall give you a 
more particular account hereafter." A gentleman from 
South Carolina visiting him, writes as follows: "Mr. 
Oglethorpe is indefatigable ; takes a vast deal of pains ; 
his fare is indifferent — having little else at present, but 
the simplest provisions. He is extremely well beloved by 
all his people. The general title they give him is "Fath- 
er.' If any of them are sick he immediately visits them 
and takes a great deal of care of them. If any difference 
arises he is the person that decides it. Thus this great 
man, with the "attention and affection of a patriarch, 
watches over and takes care of his people." Oglethorpe 
soon concluded articles of friendship and commerce 
with the Indians. His policy in dealing with the In- 
dians is characterized by wisdom, humanity and states- 
manship. The venerable and able Mico Tomo Chi Chi, 
wise in council, courageous in action and faithful in 
friendship, co-operated heartily and efficiently with 
him in his policy of justice and friendship in their 
dealings and relations. These relations being satisfac- 
torily settled, he next addresses himself to the exten- 
sion and protection of the settlement. He planted dif- 
ferent settlements at eligible places and constructed 
fortifications to secure their safety. The population 
was increased by the accession of small numbers of 



ME2f AND THINGS 211 

Hebrews, Italians and Germans at different times. At 
the end of fifteen months, this great enterprise was suc- 
cessfully inaugurated. Oglethorpe returned to Eng- 
land, taking with him Tomo Chi Chi, the Mico, his 
wife, son and a few chiefs. The colonists were greatly 
affected at his departure, following him to the ship on 
which he sailed, weeping. In the language of Mr. Von 
Reck, "They could not restrain their tears when they 
saw him go, who was their benefactor and their father ; 
who had carefully watched over them as a good shepherd 
does over his flock; and who had so tender a care of 
them, both by day and by night." The Indians were 
presented at court and received by the King on his 
throne. They were feted, flattered and wondered at to 
their delight and amazement during their stay in Eng- 
land, Oglethorpe resumed temporarily his seat in Par- 
liament. He availed himself of the interest which the 
presence of the Indians created in the public mind to 
solicit contributions of books, for the religious and lit- 
erary instruction of both the colonists and the Indians. 
The importation of African slaves and arms into the 
colony was prohibited. 

On the 10th of December, 1735, he sailed from Eng- 
land with two ships, the "Symond" and the "London 
Merchant" of 200-tons burden each, convoyed by H. M. 
sloop of war "Hawk," with two hundred and 
two persons on board. Elaborate preparation 
had been made for Oglethorpe's passage on the 
"Hawk" but he chose to deny himself these comforts 
and take a cabin on the "Symond," where he could 
be in personal association with the emigrants. These 



212 MEN. AND THINGS 

ships bore to the colonies supplies of provisions, agri- 
cultural implements, arms, ammunition, etc. Among 
the passengers were John Wesley, as missionary, and 
Charles Wesley, his brother, as secretary of the Indian 
affairs for the colony of Georgia. While they each 
practically failed in Georgia they both became famous, 
John, as the founder of a great Protestant church and 
Charles as the peerless, sacred poet of history. The 
theology of the one and the songs of the other, have 
thrilled and solaced the heart of humanity around the 
planet. 

Oglethorpe placed Causton in charge of affairs in the 
colony. His management was unwise and injudicious, 
resulting in discontent among the people and financial 
embarrassment to the colony. Upon his return he 
brought over something more than two hundred immi- 
grants for Avhose settlement he immediately provided. 
He settled Augusta about this time. He also discovered 
the true line between Georgia and Florida and secured 
the adoption of a treaty or arrangement by which the 
dispute with the Spanish was harmonized and adjusted 
which, however, was rudely repudiated by the Spanish 
authorities. He was alert in strengthening the de- 
fenses of the coast to meet the impending invasion. 
The distance from England, the delay and difficulty 
in obtaining assistance and his inadequacy of men and 
munitions of war placed him and the fortunes of the 
colony in the utmost peril. But they developed in him 
the highest qualities of the true soldier and statesman. 
His defense of St. Simons, against a vastly superior 
force was characterized by the rarest courage and mili- 



MEN AND THINGS 213 

tary skill and strategy, of which a fitting memorial 
is the name of the "Bloody Marsh." The retreating 
Spaniards were followed subsequently by Oglethorpe to 
St. Augustine and the failure to capture this strong- 
hold resulted only from the weakness of Oglethorpe's 
force. 

Causton had been deposed and the mischief his con- 
duct had inflicted upon the colonists in the main re- 
paired. The negro insurrection in South Carolina sup- 
pressed and the Spanish invasion repelled, Oglethorpe 
now provided for the future security of the colony by 
thoroughly repairing the fortifications upon which its 
protection depended. This accomplished, the colonists 
with a career of prosperity opening up before them, 
after ten years of arduous toil, deep anxiety and self- 
sacrifice, he left Georgia for England, July 23, 1743. 
It would seem that this pioneer knight of humanity, 
after having done, suffered, sacrificed and accomplished 
so much for the service and happiness of others, would 
escape the wrongs of misrepresentation, calumny and 
persecution. Yet such was not the case. Ambition, 
avarice, malignity and meanness have characterized 
every age of this world's history. These contemptible 
vices put in their appearance among the colonists. I^ 
mutinous soldier attempted to assassinate Oglethorpe. 
Others with higher pretensions but equally base spirit, 
by vile slander, would paralyze his influence and blast 
his fame. One, Col. Cooke was conspicuous for his as- 
saults upon the character and conduct of his general. 
A British court-martial branded the charges as false; 
and dismissed him from the service with infamy. The 



214 MEN AND THINGS 

contrast of these low vices with his illustrious virtues 
only added brilliancy to their splendor. In the brief 
period of a decade this loyal subject of the crown and 
faithful servant of the trustees — equally a master in 
the conception of the grandest schemes and the execu- 
tion of the smallest details, perfectly familiar with the 
caprices of human nature, and largely endowed with 
the power to control men, disregarding difficulties and 
overcoming obstacles, pursued his purpose with a step 
as steady as time, planted a colony in the wilderness^ 
conciliated the friendship of the Indians, humbled the 
pride of the Spanish and thus laid upon the granite 
foundations of justice, truth and virtue, the corner- 
stone of the great Empire State of Georgia, whica 
stands and will forever stand — the imperishable me- 
morial of his greatness. Upon his return to England 
he submitted his report to the trustees and received their 
sincere thanks for the ability, fidelity and success with 
which he had discharged the trust. 

The king appoved his conduct, recognized his ability 
and the value of his services, and promoted him to the 
rank of Lieutenant-General, Major-General and finally. 
General of the British Army. Artists, scholars, poets, 
orators, statesmen and philosophers sought his society 
and friendship. He retained his seat in Parliament 
until 1754, and was recognized as the Governor of the 
Colony of Georgia until the surrender of the charter 
of the trustees to the crown in 1Y52. He lived to wit- 
ness the dismemberment of the empire he had done, 



MEN AND THINGS 215 

suffered and spent so much to extend and glorify. He 
held an interview with Mr. John Adams, the first 
plenipotentiary from the young republic to the court 
of St. James. He lived to the advanced age of ninety- 
seven years, nearly one-third of a century longer than 
the allotted span. He died with the serene tranquility 
of a philosopher in the sublime faith of a Christian. 

The analysis of Oglethorpe's life and character de- 
velops a rare and bright constellation of high qualities 
and shining virtues. If he had ambition it was not 
that reprehensible sort which seeks power, wealth and 
fame for self-aggrandizement, but rather that laudable 
kind which seeks to be remembered for the good done 
for others. A wise, practical legislator and statesman, 
he knew how to discover and apply remedies for exist- 
ing evils. A brave and skillful commander, he knew 
when and where to protect the weak. Recognizing his 
duty to his God and his race, his heart trembled with 
sympathy to the appeals of sorrow and his strong hand 
was outstretched for the relief of suffering. He ex- 
changed ease, comfort, pleasure and security for toil, 
anxiety, hardship and danger. He devoted time, tal- 
ents and fortune upon the altar of philanthrophy to 
minister to the help of others; and stands the foremost 
Englishman of his age; and next to Washington, the 
finest character in history. Marlborough and Blen- 
heim, Wellington and Waterloo, N"elson and Trafalgar, 
pale and fade in comparison with Oglethorpe and Geor- 



216 MEN AND THINGS 

gia. If it be true, as an American poetess has sweetly 
simg 

"That parted friends of whom we say 
'In beds of clay they rest," 
Bend meekly down from glory's sphere 
And, with an angel's smile or tear 
Allure us to the blest;" 

then the spirit of Oglethorpe must woo, with solic- 
itude the prosperous, happy millions of Georgians, to 
the practice of virtues, his own life so gloriously illus- 
trated. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

The Religion of Christianity. 

The soul of man has thirsted and panted in all 
climes through all the ages for the solution of the mys- 
terious problems of life and death. Divine revelation 
as contained in the sacred Scriptures alone furnishes 
it. The religious element or instinct of the race has 
found expression in vague theories and speculations 
and the establishment of monstrous and revolting sys- 
tems of idolatry to propitiate the unknown and un« 
knowable cause or author of being, of its origin and 
destiny. 

The book of nature, open to all the world, has sug- 
gested to reason and philosophy the invisible things 
of Him from the foundation of the world, which are 
-clearly seen, being understood by the things that are 
made even His eternal power and God-head." But 
reason and philosophy could never find out the institu- 
tion and administration of a moral government involv- 
ing law, prescribing death as the punishment of its 
violation, nor the stupendous scheme of merciful sal- 
vation, which infinite Goodness ordained for the pardon 
of sin and rescue from death. Divine revelation alone 
reveals this truth ; hence its necessity and value. It 
opens with a brief historic summary of the Creation, 
communicated by God, through inspiration to Moses. 

217 



218 MElsf AND THINGS 

It shows that the first pair were created male and 
female, free from sin, endowed with volition, put in a 
pleasant place, assigned to agreeable employment and 
subjected to law. This was the law of faith and obe- 
dience, the cardinal and constitutional law of the Divine 
administration, unchanged and unchangeable. They 
disbelieved, disobeyed, and thus brought death into the 
world with all our woe;" and thus raised the great prob- 
lem with which the religion of Christianity deals, — the 
maintenance of the integrity of an unchangeable law 
that condenms to death and yet saves the criminal un- 
der its condemnation. After the disaster of the fall, 
the law of faith and obedience was presented in another 
form — in the form of promise. 'The seed of the wo- 
man shall bruise the serpent's head." This promise 
was vague but Abel caught its import of atonement and 
pardon and evidenced his faith by his offering of the 
symbol in sacrifice of the lamb slain from before the 
foundation of the world. The revelation of God, of 
Himself and His government was slow, gradual and 
progressive with salient points and cri&es which served 
as keynotes in the music of the march. Such were 
the translation of Enoch, the call of Abraham, and 
the giving of the law to Moses. Enoch walked with 
God; by which is meant he believed and obeyed Him. 
He was translated as the sign and proof to the patri- 
archial age of the final resurrection. Abraham was 
chosen the head and founder of the family through 
which the promise was to be fulfilled, and deliverance 
was to come. His selection was made after subjecting 
his faith and obedience to the severest test that Infinite 



MEN AND THINGS 219 

wisdom and goodness could devise. The Decalogue, 
written by God on tablets of stone, was delivered to 
Moses as the basic rules and principles for all time, 
by which the race should regulate its conduct and rela- 
tions with the Creator and each other. It vindicates 
the majesty of the sovereign and provides for the pro- 
tection of every right and interest of the subject. The 
worship of the Tabernacle with its symbolic ritualism 
was the shadow of good things to come. "Our school- 
master to bring us to Christ." Obedience to the cere- 
monial law was the test of faith in the promise. It 
was in a sense spectacular, appealing to the thought 
through the senses. The prophetic succeeded the patri- 
archal age. The promise had been repeated with in- 
creasing clearness and emphasis. The Temple super- 
seded the Tabernacle. 

Elijah's fiery flight had illustrated to the prophetic 
age the glorious truth of the final resurrection. Job 
knew that his Redeemer liveth, and that after his skin, 
worms destroyed his body, yet in his flesh he should 
see God. Daniel saw a kingdom set up which shall 
never be destroyed. Isaiah, whose lips were touched 
with a live coal from off the altar from the loftiest sum- 
mit of prophetic vision, witnessed the final sacrificial 
scene, which he described with historical accuracy and 
announced the truth before the event that "with His 
stripes we are healed." 

Zachariah saw in the twilight of the dispensation of 
law a prophecy, "a fountain flowing out from the 
House of David, and from Jerusalem, half of it to- 
wards the former sea and half of it towards the hinder 



220 MEN AND THINGS 

sea; and in winter and summer shall it be." The multi- 
tudes of the former sea slaked their thirst for immortal- 
ity by faith in the promise, those of the hinder sea by 
faith in its fulfillment. In the fullness of time there 
was a rumor at Jerusalem that a new king of the Jews 
was born. 

A strange star had appeared and guided wise men 
to Bethlehem to offer him their fealty and worship. 
The shepherd told a strange story of a new song '"Glory 
to God in the Highest; Peace on Earth — Good Will to 
Men." Herod became alarmed for his throne and mas- 
sacred the children of Bethlehem in the hope of destroy- 
ing the new king. But his parents, being warned in a 
dream of danger, fled with the young child into Egypt 
where they remained until Herod's death. 

These events seem to have passed out of the public 
thought, except the memory of Herod's cruelty and 
of the grief of the sorrow-stricken mothers of Bethle- 
hem. Thirty years thereafter a bold, fearless and 
earnest ascetic emerged from the wilderness and start- 
led the country by boldly proclaiming that "the King- 
dom of Heaven was at hand" and preaching the doctrine 
of "baptism and repentance for the remission of sins," 
as the necessary preparation for the reception of the 
King. The seed of the woman appeared on the banks 
of the Jordan, whom when John saw, he exclaimed to 
the multitude "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh 
away the sin of the world!" Startling announcement! 

Annealed by the baptism of water and the Spirit 
for His mission, which was "to seek and to save that 
which was lost," He selected His Disciples and entered 



MEN AND THINGS 221 

upon His offices — of prophet to teach, priest to atone, 
and king, to rule. His advent was in the fullness of 
time. The highest tides of Grecian, Roman and Hebrew 
intellect and learning met at the Jewish Capital. The 
nations were at peace. Judaism, power and paganism 
were at their best to examine the pretentions and contest 
the claims of the Carpenter of Nazareth to the Messiah- 
ship. "And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a 
mountain, and when He was set, His disciples came unto 
Him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, say- 
ing "what ?" — stating the necessary conditions of spirit 
in the process of transition from condemnation to par- 
don, from pollution to purity, from death to life, viz: 
Humility, repentance, submission, sincerity, forgive- 
ness, purity. These eternal truths he utters in the 
sweet persuasive form of blessings. "Blessed are the 
poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.'' 
"Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be com- 
forted." "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit 
the earth." "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst 
after righteousness for they shall be filled." "Blessed 
are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." 
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." 
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called 
the children of God." This is the culmination, purity 
of heart and peace with God. The Master in this dis- 
course is dealing with the questions of life and death 
in a kingdom of law and love. He asserts the suprem- 
acy and duration of the Decalogue; and proceeds to 
interpret it according to its true spirit and meaning, 
and to explode its perversion by false teachers. He 



222 MEN AND THINGS 

proceeds with His instruction in the application of the 
provisions of law, and principles of love in the conduct 
of life, in terms so simple, with illustrations so clear, 
that the weakest mind could not misunderstand; and 
with wisdom so profound that the shrewdest malignant 
could not assail until He reached the climax: "Be ye 
therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven 
is perfect." After this. He returned to the line of in- 
struction, asserting the true and assailing the false in 
motive and method. He emphasized the importance 
of sincerity and rebuked the shame of hypocrisy in 
professed worship. He guards all the coming genera- 
tions against the ignorance, weakness, selfishness and 
hypocrisy in prayer by instructing how, and for what 
to pray. "After this manner therefore, pray ye : "^Our 
Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.' " 
ISTot your Father nor mine, but Our Father in the plural, 
so that each one prays for himseK and all others — thus 
recognizing the relationship of family — father and chil- 
dren with all the tender sentiments of affection which 
the relationship implies and in precise conformity to 
the law. 

"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy 
God in vain." Hallowed, honored, revered and glorified 
be Thy name. Thy kingdom of truth, love and law — 
to all hearts the expression of hungering and thirsting 
after righteousness. "Thy will be done on earth as it 
is in heaven." The unconditional surrender, submission 
and obedience of the human to the divine will "Give us 
this day our daily bread." Christ is the bread of life, 
of which if a man eat, he shall never die. This invoca- 



MEN AND THINGS 223 

tion calls for the spiritual life of Christ as the daily 
banquet of the hungry soul, and also the material which 
nourishes the physical body, "Forgive us our debts, as 
we forgive our debtors." This recognizes the absolute 
equality of rights and obligations ; and that no one can 
claim forgiveness who refuses to concede it. 

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us 
from evil." This has been called the wisest utterance 
that ever fell from lips — human or divine. It seeks 
certain safety by avoiding all risks. The Teacher knew 
that temptation had wrecked the race. He had felt 
and struggled with its power. He knew the weakness 
of men. He knew whence deliverance comes ; and gra- 
ciously ordains this invocation as the means of secur- 
ing safety. The spirit that utters this prayer truly 
will not fail to realize that God's is "the kingdom, the 
power and the glory forever." Following this prayer, 
are lessons of truth simply stated and beautifully illus- 
trated, dealing with the providence of God and the 
hearts and life of men, in their relations to Him, and to 
each other — uniting the authority of the law, the 
prophets and the gospel in support of the infinite wis- 
dom and absolute perfection of the rule, "In all things 
whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do 
ye even so to them." 

The people were astonished at His doctrine, for "He 
taught them as one having authority and was not as 
the Scribes." What blessing and a joy it would have 
been to Socrates, Seneca and Plato to have heard this 
most wonderful discourse! 



224 MEN AND THINGS 

Truth is imchangeable. The great Teacher never 
modified these truths, but as occasion required, elabo- 
rated, emphasized and intensified them, in simile, 
parable and story, and exemplified them in his life. 
The Epistles continue their explanation and seek to 
secure their adoption in faith and practice. All avail- 
able resources were exhausted to suppress them, and 
discredit the Teacher. As these efforts increased in 
magnitude and malignity, He assumed a bolder atti- 
tude; and interposed higher claims for their authorship 
and authority; and overwhelmed his assailants with dis- 
may, chagrin and discomfiture. The common people 
heard Him gladly. The scribes and elders rejected 
Him. But a Greek woman and a Roman captain be- 
lieved, and were blessed by Him. The scepter was de- 
parting from Judah, in the presence of the Lion of his 
Tribe. 

For about three years the Messiah toiled and traveled 
over Palestine and preached the gospel of the King- 
dom of Heaven on mountain and in plain, in cities and 
solitudes and on land and lake. He hungered and 
thirsted and was without home and shelter. Great 
multitudes followed Him always and everywhere 
and pressed upon and crowded around to hear Him. 
For "He spake as never man spake." He healed the 
sick, restored the blind, cured the lame, cleansed the 
lepers, cast out devils, gave speech to the dumb, fed 
the hungry, stilled the storm, and calmed the sea, 
raised the dead, pardoned penitents and preached the 
gospel to the poor. AVhile thus engaged malignity hav- 
ing met him at the cradle with an edict for His death — 



MEN AND THINGS 225 

pursued Him without intermission, until it secured it 
on the cross. As He approached the end, He an- 
nounced to His disciples plainly that His enemies 
would kill him, and that He should arise the third 
day. A few days thereafter, taking Peter, James and 
John with him into a mountain He was transfigured 
before them. Moses, representative of law and Elijah, 
of prophecy, appeared and talked with him of his 
approaching decease at Jerusalem, and witnessed 
the glorious light of the gospel, the gospel of salvation 
as symbolized in the transfigured face of its author. 
Moses received the tablets of the law in the terrors of 
cloud, thunder and lightning on Mount Sinai. Elijah 
overthrew the prophets of Baal with consuming fire 
from heaven upon Mount Carmel. But on the ra- 
diant brow of Mount Tabor, in the calm sweet- 
ness of light and love, the light of the world in 
His transfiguration, indicated the fulfillment of 
promise, prophecy and ceremonial law as well as 
His glorification after His resurrection, receiving 
from His Father, from the bright cloud which over- 
shadowed Him, the message to all the world, for all 
time, "This is my beloved son in whom I am well 
pleased, hear Him." The end was approaching. The 
last authoritative celebration of the Passover was held, 
at the conclusion of which a new memorial was insti- 
tuted; the banquet of faith in the broken body and 
shed blood of the world's Redeemer in the symbol of 
bread and wine and the monumental lesson of service 
and humility taught in washing the disciples' feet. 



226 MEN AND THINGS 

The awful tragedy of the betrayal, mock trial and 
Crucifixion immediately followed; succeeded by the 
Resurrection, the delivery of the commission to preach 
the gospel to all the world, the Ascension and the Pen- 
tecost. The three principal figures in the condemna- 
tion and Crucifixion scene — Judas, Caiaphas and Pi- 
late — each sought refuge from despair in suicide. The 
Jews, at their Capital, through their constituted author- 
ities murdered the Son of God. His response to that 
crime is read in the overthrow of the Capital by the 
Romans under Titus and the subsequent history of the 
Jews. The gospel of the Son of God and the agency 
of the Holy Spirit are the powers now engaged for the 
world's salvation. The sacred Scriptures revealed God 
as an eternally seK-existing Spirit, in unity with the 
Lord Jesus Christ, His Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
proceeding from the Father, forming the one, only 
true and living triune God — the Creator and author cf 
all things. He is absolutely infinite, in wisdom, in 
power, in righteousness, in knowledge, in justice, in 
truth, in mercy, and in love. They reveal further the 
establishment of a moral government, based upon law, 
faith and obedience — designed to glorify Himself and 
promote the happiness of His creatures, ^'\llen unbe- 
lief resulting in disobedience brought death upon 
the race as the penalty for sin. He graciously provided 
for atonement and satisfaction for sin, by the death 
of His Son; and secured to the race upon the simple 
conditions of a repentance, faith and obedience to law, 
salvation and eternal life. ''For God so loved the 
world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoso- 



MEN AND THINGS 227 

ever believeth in Him, should not perish but have ever- 
lasting life." 

"Let all the world fall down and know, 
That none but God, such love can show." 

The Kingdom of Heaven is not of this world. The 
religion of Christianity deals with the heart, soul and 
conduct of dying men and women during probation ; and 
seeks by regeneration to translate them from the domin- 
ion of the law of "sin and death" to the law of the spirit 
of life in Christ Jesus, which makes us free from the law 
of "sin and death." The result is conformity to the di- 
vine will, spiritual life, hid with Christ in God and 
eternal life in the end. The kingdom of heaven is a 
kingdom of light, truth, love and life, that makes men 
and women pure and happy. 

To prove the difference between the true and the 
false it is only necessary to contrast it with all other 
systems of religion. It has blessed the race with the 
establishment of hospitals, asylums, sanitariums for 
the afflicted, clothed the naked, fed the hungry, minis- 
tered to the sick, helped the poor, solaced the sorrowing, 
educated the ignorant, reformed the vicious, pardoned 
the penitent, purified the sinful ; and lifted humanity to 
its present plane of civilization, hope, light and char- 
acter. It has contested every inch of its progress with 
the innumerable powers of darkness and evil. It has 
steadily advanced through storms of persecutions — il- 
lustrated by the faith of confessors and sanctified in the 
blood of the martyrs. 

What have Paganism, Buddhism, Tauism, Confuci- 
anism, Shintoism, Islamism, Mormonism and all the 



228 MEN AND THINGS 

other 'isms done to bless the world? Echo answer, 
"What ?" And yet, at the recent Chicago World's Ex- 
position it was gravely proposed to compare, consider 
and discuss the relative merits of these monstrous sys- 
tems, with the peerless truth of Christianity. All of 
the grand facts involved in the divine plan of admin- 
istration of this world's affairs have now transpired and 
become historic, except two, the resurrection of the 
dead and the final judgment — awarding rewards to the 
righteous and punishment to the wicked. These are 
both assured by promise and prophecy. Indeed they 
constitute the keystone in the arch of time and proba- 
tion. 

Eternal life is the reward of faith and obedience; 
and eternal death the punishment of unbelief and diso- 
bedience. The one glorifies His gTace, the other vindi- 
cates His justice. 

Is the revelation contained in the sacred Scriptures 
true? If not, hopeless despair only remains. 

The arguments demonstrating its proof have long 
since been exhausted and have remained ; and will for- 
ever continue unanswered. To recapitulate them in 
hrlei: the mysterious system of the universe is known 
to exist. It could not and did not exist without a cause. 
'No effect can exist without a cause. The Pagan world 
is proof that unaided human thought could never find 
out the cause. Hence the necessity of a divine revela- 
tion of the author and object of its creation. The great 
open book of nature which can not otherwise be under- 
stood, is read of all men, and fully explained in the 
li2;ht of revelation. Every star that sparkles in the 



MEN AND THINGS 229 

crown of niglit, twinkles its silent testimony to the in- 
finite wisdom, power and righteousness of its author. 
The unity of purpose, design, plan and object of the 
Creation as disclosed in the sacred writings, recorded 
by inspired men in different and distant ages, dissimi- 
lar in mental endow^nents, personal environments and 
under different social and civil systems, supply the 
strongest internal evidence of their truth. Another and 
an infallible test of truth, is found in the exact and pre- 
cise fulfillment in their minutest circumstantial details 
of prophecies, cries uttered hundreds and thousands of 
years before the events, by inspiration. This seems 
to me absolute demonstration of the truth of this revela- 
tion. 

God's revelation of Himself, His creation and His 
moral government and spiritual kingdom have been in 
all the ages, evidenced by the sanction of miracles. ISTo 
human powder can raise the dead. The Galilean start- 
led and confounded His enemies and amazed the multi- 
tude by the miracles He wrought in their presence, to 
which He appealed as the proof of His unity with the 
Father, the omnipotence of His power, and the divin- 
ity of His mission. The final proof is the conscious 
conviction and experience of the human soul, directly 
witnessed by the Holy Spirit. Howbeit when He, the 
Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all the 
truth ; for he shall not speak of himself ; but whatsoever 
he shall hear, that shall he speak ; and he will shew you 
things to come, 

"He shall glorify me, for He shall receive of mine, 
and shall shew it unto you." The only sin that shall 



230 MEN AND THINGS 

not be forgiven is the sin against this witness. The re- 
ligion of Christianity transfers the dog-licked beggar 
from the rich man's gate to Abraham's bosom; and the 
penitent thief from the cross to Paradise with Christ. 
Agnosticism removes IngersoU from the triumphs of 
the platform and forum to a cupful of urned ashes. 
Reader, which do you prefer? Which? The Scrip- 
tures disclose Christianity as a kingdom of law and 
love, faith and obedience, light and life. "Thy King- 
dom come." 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

The Mira-cles CoI^^CIDENT with the CEroinxioN. 
By H. P. B. 

"Now when the centurion, and they that were with him 
watching Jesus, saw the earthquake and those things Ihat 
were done, they feared greatly, saying: 'Truly, thi& was the 
Son of God. " St. Matthew' 

The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ was the most impor- 
tant event in the history of the world. The Cross is the 
grand focal center of the moral universe, to which the 
faith and hopes of a guilty race have gravitated in every 
clime and in all ages. It is the concave mirror that 
gathers from heaven all its rays of light and life, and 
the convex speculum that scatters them in every direc- 
tion over the earth. Involving, as it does, the highest 
interests of humanity, as well as the great principles 
of the Divine administration, every incident connected 
with the Crucifixion is to be regarded as of significant 
import. This is certainly true of the co-incident mira- 
cles. I do not share in the opinion commonly enter- 
tained that they were intended as the mere attestations 
of the Divine displeasure at the cruelty exhibited in the 
execution of the Eedeemer. This seems to have been 
the opinion of the guard detailed to watch him while 
on the Cross. 

Darkness and earthquakes have certainly been used 
as the instruments of Divine punishment ; but that they 

231 



232 MEN AND THINGS 

were not so used on this occasion is abundantly demon- 
iStrated in the fact that no one was destroyed or pun- 
ished by them. That these miracles all occurred pre- 
cisely at the time and place they did, and that they 
never occurred before nor since clearly establishes, 
as I think, the truth of two propositions : First, that 
they did not result from natural causes — from the ordi- 
nary operation of the laws of nature — and, therefore, 
were not accidental co-incidences; but that they were 
the immediate result of a supernatural, a divine agency, 
and for this reason, properly miracles ; and second, that 
they were the representatives of great and vital ideas, 
involved in the divine administration, respecting the 
economy of human salvation. 

Assuming this view to be the true one, and I appre- 
hend none can controvert it successfully, the inquiry 
arises what are the ideas they were intended to repre- 
sent ? What are we to understand them to signify ? 

This article proposes to answer these inquiries, and 
present the solution of their import. They were four in 
number: 1. The darkness. 2. The earthquake. 
3. The rending of the veil. 4. The resurrection of the 
saints ; and will be considered in the order named. 

These miracles all speak the language of symbol. 
In relation to the first, the simj^le statement of the Di- 
vine record is, that there was darkness over all the land 
from the sixth to the ninth hour. 

Darkness is the symbol of despair. This miracle was 
the first in the order of time. So the first condition of 
humanity, affected by the atonement then in process of 



MEN AND THINGS 233 

consummation, was one of tlie hopeless despair, of which 
the darkness was the terrific sign or symboL 

The language of the law was : "In the day thou eatest 
thereof, thou shalt surely die." 

The immutable truth of the Almighty Lawgiver was 
pledged to the enforcement of the penalty upon the in- 
fraction of the prohibition. Adam's disobedience made 
himself and his offspring obnoxious to this penalty. 

In the absence of the atonement outside of Christ cru- 
cified, the destiny of the race was precisely that of the 
"angels w^ho kept not their first estate," and who w'ere 
"reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness to the 
judgment of the great day" — a destiny of hopeless de- 
spair and eternal death. This was the thing of which 
the darkness was the sign. 

It was a fit emblem of man's condition after the fall, 
aside from the provision made for his recovery. Ostra- 
cized from Eden, cherubims brandishing the flaming 
sword of wrath along every avenue that approached the 
Tree of Life, a ruined and wretched race moved in mel- 
ancholy procession from the cradle to the grave, and 
from the grave to hell. 

There was no eye to pity, no arm to save. It was the 
impending doom of despair and death that was sub- 
limely signified in the darkness that overshadowed the 
scene of Crucifixion. 

What consternation that vast multitude of scoffing 
spectators upon Cavalry must have felt, when, without 
any premonition, the eye of Heaven was put out to show 
them their ruin without the Savior they were engaged 
in crucifying! How they strained their aching eyes to 



234 MEN AND THINGS 

peer through this noon of night ! Oh ! how their bosoms 
heaved with anxiety, and their hearts throbbed with 
fear, in that hour of dreadful stillness, as they listened 
to the blood-drops as they fell at the foot of the Cross 
from the Redeemer's bleeding side ! 

The next miracle in the order of consideration is the 
earthquake. 

An earthquake is the symbol of revolution — ^the over- 
throw of dominion. 

The idea presented or represented by this sign is the 
overthrow of the empire of sin and death — the conquest 
of the Cross of Christ. 

"The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which 
was lost." The world was lost. "Sold under sin," taken 
by the Devil captive at his will, "Condemned already," 
"there were none righteous," "Judgment came upon all 
unto condemnation," mankind were the servants of sin 
and the subjects of Satan. The mission of the Son of 
God was one of invasion and conquest. He came to 

"Break the power of cancelled sin 
And set the prisoner free." 

Paradoxical as it may appear, yet it is true, that the 
gTandest declaration of war to which the world ever lis- 
tened was the thrilling pean that swelled from the heav- 
enly hosts of "glory to God in the highest, peace on 
earth, good will toward men." It announced the open- 
ing of the campaign that was to vanquish death and hell 
and result in the rescue and salvation of sinners. The 
Devil understood well its import. He knew Avith what 
antagonist he must measure arms. He opened the con- 



MEN AND THINGS 235 

flict by the same strategy that wrought onr ruin in Para- 
dise. He endeavored to subsidize the allegiance of his 
adversary by the temptation in the wilderness, but he 
was vanquished on this first field. 

Everything that Jesus said, and everything that He 
did, was in hostility to the kingdom of Satan — was a 
blow aimed at his supremacy over the human soul — was 
an effort to break the slavish chains of sin in which he 
held the world in thralldom — to overthrow the spiritual 
darkness that reigned like the "starless night of desola- 
tion around its heart and hopes." 

This conflict was to culminate in the fulfillment of 
the promise made in the Garden amid the scenes of our 
disaster, that "the seed of the woman shall bruise the 
serpent's head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." 

Its crisis was the hour of Crucifixion. As the final 
conflict approached, Jesus was betrayed by one disciple, 
denied by another and abandoned by the rest. He en- 
countered alone the trinity of hell — the world, the flesh 
and the Devil. 

When crushed by the superincumbent burden of "sins 
not his own," He pressed His sacred face to the chilly 
ground of Gethsemane, and mingled the accents of His 
dying prayer with the midnight murmurings of Ke- 
dron. There was no arm bared in His defense, no tear- 
drop to melt with His sorrow, and no heart to throb in 
unison with His anguish. It is true He was strength- 
ened by an angel, but there was not a pang alleviated, 
nor a drop taken from the cup that pressed His quiver- 
ing lips. 



236 MEN AND THINGS 

When he exclaimed, "It is finished," He dealt the 
final blow upon the head of Satan that broke his grasp 
upon the human soul, and sent him reeling back to his 
home in hell. And Heaven announced in the symbol 
of an earthquake, the redemption of the world from the 
dominion of death, as Jesus 

"Conquered when he fell." 

The veil of the temple was a curtain that separated 
the holy place where the priest ministered from the 
sanctum sanctorum, into which the high priest alone 
entered, once a year, to make expiation for the sins of 
the people. "And the veil of the temple was rent in 
twain from the top to the bottom." 

When the veil of the temple was rent, or split, it dis- 
closed to the public view the Mercy Seat, and opened 
access to it to all alike, priest and people, Jew and Gen- 
tile — signifying, symbolizing the great truth that Jesus, 
the Great High Priest of the new covenant, who, 
"through the eternal spirit, offered himself without spot 
to God," had "consecrated for us, through the veil — 
that is to say, His flesh — a new and living way" to 
the Mercy Seat above, of which that in the temple was 
the figure; where, "after he had offered one sacrifice 
for sins," "He forever sat down on the right hand of 
God." The whole ceremonial economy of the temple 
service was a system of symbolism — "a shadow of good 
things to come." The atonement offered by Jesus 
Christ, the Great High Priest, "once for all," was the 
substance. The rending of the veil as Jesus expired on 
the cross, proclaimed the fulfillment of the types and 
the shadows of the ceremonial system, in the new and 



MEN AND THINGS 237 

living way opened up to the Throne of Grace — the 
Mercy Seat in Heaven, by a crucified, risen, ascended 
and. continually interceding High Priest. 

The intervention of priestcraft and the intercession 
of saints were exploded when the veil was rent. Sal- 
vation was purchased for all alike, Jew and Gentile, 
through the merits of the atonement, upon the simple 
conditions of repentance towards God, and faith in our 
Lord Jesus Christ. The hearthstone, church altar, the 
closet and grave, become shrines upon which penitent 
sinners and believing saints could offer, through the 
blood of atonement, the incense of an acceptable wor- 
ship. And thus the "grace of God that bringeth salva- 
tion appeared unto all men." 

"And the graves were opened ; and many bodies of 
the saints which slept arose, and came out of the grave 
after his resurrection, and went into the holy city and 
appeared unto many." 

The resurrection of the saints was the fourth and 
last miracle coincident with the Crucifixion. Many in- 
quiries have arisen, and much speculation has been in- 
dulged upon this subject. The questions who were these 
saints, and what became of them may not probably be 
answered satisfactorily. The history of the transaction 
is certainly silent upon the subject. 

But the question under consideration, and the one it 
is proposed to discuss is, what was the design of the 
miracle ? What does it teach ? What is the thing which 
it signifies ? It is the sign or symbol of the general res- 
urrection of the human body at the end of time — at 
the final judgment. The disobedience of Adam in- 



238 MEIi AND THINGS 

volved his race in the doom of spiritual, physical and 
eternal death. ''The wages of sin is death." The 
atonement presents a sublime system or plan of recover- 
ing mercy, precisely adequate to human exigency in 
this condition. It justifies from Adamic transgression, 
relieves from the judgment of condemnation to which 
his disobedience exposed him. It grants a new trial, 
and places man back on probation. It secures the quick- 
ening efficacy of the Holy Spirit, which sufiiciently re- 
stores spiritual life to enable him to exercise faith in 
Christ, which it substitutes for obedience to the law as 
the test of our probationary state ; and offers pardon for 
actual transgression on the condition of repentance and 
faith, and thus saves from eternal death. 

As we have already seen, the condition of the race 
after the fall was symbolized by the darkness, the over- 
throw of hell's dominion over it by the earthquake, and 
access to the Mercy Seat in Heaven by the rending of 
the veil. 

But there is one consequence of original sin yet to 
be removed. This is physical death, the death of the 
human body. That exemption from this was not se- 
cured by the atonement of Jesus Christ is demonstrated 
by the broken hearts, graveyards and funeral crowds of 
earth. The inquiry then arises how did the atonement 
meet this difficulty, or relieve from this doom ? The 
answer is not by exempting the body from death, but 
by restoring it to life after it died. This it does in 
the general resurrection at the last day. 

"The hour is coming, and now is, in which they 
that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall 



MEN AND THINGS 239 

come forth ; they that have done good unto the resurrec- 
tion of life, and they that have done evil unto the resur- 
rection of damnation." This is the mode by which "our 
Savior Jesus Christ abolished death." This is the clos- 
ing scene in the world's great drama, and was gloriously 
symbolized by the closing miracle in the scene of Cruci- 
fixion. The doctrine of the resurrection is the keystone 
in the arch of the Christian's faith; withdraw it, and 
the whole superstructure of Christianity tumbles into 
ruins, and leaves the world in the eternal embrace of 
relentless death. But while 

"An angel's arm can't snatch us from the grave, 
Legions of angels can't confine us there." 
"While humanity shudders at the gloom of the grave, 
the Christian looks upon its darkness, when spanned by 
the rainbow of hope, refiected from the blood-drops of 
Calvary and sings, 

"Yet in this lowly bed was laid 

The Savior's form divine. 
And death's unbreathing cell became, 
Salvation's living shrine." 
The four great cardinal truths or facts in the history 
and destiny of the human race — the fall — the restora- 
tion — the salvation secured to all — and the resurrection 
of the body — were signified by these miracles that 
passed in symbolic panorama before the gazing world, 
on the bloody brow of Calvary when the son of man 
"Closed his eyes to show us God." 
Oh, what eternal interests cluster around the cross ! 



240 ME2f AND THINGS 

It threw back upon the symbolic blood of patriarchial 
altars, the light of a coming Savior. It poured its 
kindling splendors along the pathway of prophecy, the 
beacon star of kings and seers. It mingled its beams of 
hope with the sacrificial blood of the Temple, and 
pointed adoring priests to the lamb for sinners slain. 
It flashes upon earth's teeming and coming millions 
salvation from the power of sin and the thrall of death. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

St. PAtJL. 

The circumstances under which St. Paul makes his 
first appearance on the stage of history, indicate the 
decided and important part he is destined to act in its 
drama. The Prince of Peace had announced, before the 
crucifixion, that His kingdom was not of this world; 
and that those whom He had selected to establish it, 
should indeed drinlv the bitter cup that the world had 
pressed to His reluctant lips. The powers of earth and 
hell resisted, at the threshold, the establishment of His 
spiritual kingdom. Stephen was awarded the honor of 
wearing the first Christian martyr's crown. At his 
execution, St. Paul, although a young man, was more 
than a disinterested spectator. He was not only a wit- 
ness, but a party to the transaction. His presence on 
this occasion, the interest he took in it, his age consid- 
ered, and the consequences likely to result from it, 
evince, at once, a decided character, as well as an incli- 
nation to impress that character upon the history of his 
race by identifying himself prominently with its most 
important events. Xature was prodigal in the bestow- 
ment of her favors upon him. He possessed a mind of 
surpassing comprehension, clearness and power. His 
moral attributes were all in profusion. His aspirations 
were elevated, his prejudices high, his impulses strong, 

241 



242 MEIJ AND THINGS 

his affections ardent, and his will invincible. He was by 
lineage, a Jew, and by profession, a Pharisee. He was 
born and reared amid the culminating splendors of the 
Augustan age — the most intellectual, perhaps, of the 
world, the present excepted. At Athens, Hesiod and 
Thucydides had written, Demosthenes and Pericles had 
spoken, Pindar and Homer had sung. The marble was 
breathing under the polishing touches of Phidias and 
Praxiteles. Apelles had mingled the light of immor- 
tality with the colors of his pencil, and the canvass 
blushed in the trophies of his genius. 

At Rome, great names illustrated the annals of paint- 
ing and statuary, poetry and eloquence. Rome was the 
proud mistress of the world — there was none to dispute 
her empire or measure arms with her prowess. The 
wisdom of Gamaliel was the exponent of Rabbinical 
learning at Jerusalem. Mythology had enrolled her 
multitudinous divinities in the Pantheon, until every 
interest, secular and sacred, was under the protection of 
its peculiar deity. The greater portion of the intellect 
of this highly intellectual age was devoted to religion 
and the arts and sciences. The claims of rival systems 
of philosophy was the subject of constant disputation 
among the schoolmen. Vice and virtue, good and evil, 
the character and attributes of the human soul — all 
claimed their full share of consideration. In all these 
systems of philosophy, cultivated intellect was strug- 
gling with its own weakness; and the human soul was 
attesting its own immortality, and gasping for that 
light which divine revelation alone sheds upon its hope 
and destiny. The Gentiles were idolaters — were heath- 



MEN AND THINGS 243 

ens. The Jews were the custodians of the Sacred Ora- 
cles of the true God, but had subordinated the mightier 
matters of the law — judgment and mercy — to the tith- 
ing of anise and mint; and had substituted for the doc- 
trines of Revelation the commandments of men. St. 
Paul, — equal to any, and surpassed by none in his nat- 
ural endowments, and these developed and embellished 
by every contribution that could be levied upon Roman, 
Grecian, Chaldean, and Hebrew literature, — burned 
with restless ambition to win a name and the honors 
and emoluments which merit confers on position. 
Brought up at the feet of her mightiest master, he was 
profoundly learned and deeply skilled in the abstrusi- 
ties of the Mosaic Law, both as it was truly written 
and as it was perverted by the traditions of the scribes 
and elders. 

Entering into the schemes and identifying himself 
with the fortunes of the Pharisees, he sought to distin- 
guish himself in the effort to crush and strangle the in- 
fant Church. Hence, soon after the martyrdom of Ste- 
phen, he is found on his way to Damascus, breathing 
threatenings and slaughter, with a warrant from the 
High Priest, authorizing him to arrest and carry bound 
to Jerusalem, any disciples of either sex that might be 
found in that city. On his way to accomplish this mis- 
sion of persecution and blood, he was converted by a 
miracle. With characteristic promptitude he inquires, 
"Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" ISTotified that 
he was called to turn the Gentiles from darkness to light, 
and from the power of Satan to the power of God — re- 
ceiving the royal investiture — he rose, mailed from 



244 MEN AND THINGS 

Heaven's armory ; and bounded into the arena of moral 
gladiatorsliip with the world, a true knight of the Cross, 
floating a flag and bearing a shield emblazoned with 
Jesus and the Eesurrection. The wealth and power, 
passion and prejudice of the world, were in hostile array 
against the religion whose championship he assmned. 
Its founder, humanly speaking, was an obscure Gali- 
lean, who had been crucified for alleged sedition against 
the great and powerful government of Kome. Some of 
his few and scattered disciples had fallen victims to the 
malice of the Jews, while the remainder were fugitives 
from their cruelty. 

In addition to the opposition before him, and the dif- 
ficulties around him, he must encounter the odium that 
treason attaches to party. But Paul's was not the 
spirit to flinch at difficulties, or quail at opposition. 
His was a spirit that panted for glorious strife, and re- 
joiced in foemen worthy of his steel. 

His moral nature changed; his learning and great 
powers of logic and eloquence, sanctified by the power 
of the Holy Ghost; his wliole conduct, brought under 
the disciplinary control of the Gospel ; his heart burning 
and melting with sympathy for his ruined race, and 
burdened with the value of immortal souls, and a com- 
mission bearing the signet of the King of Kings, he 
enters upon a glorious career of trial and triumph, that 
presents him as the grandest character of all time and 
history. 

The idolatry of the Gentiles, taught in the schools, 
practiced in the temples, patronized by tlie multitudes, 
and protected by the State, was to be assailed on the 



MEN AND THINGS 245 

one hand. On the other, degenerate Judaism, with its 
exchisive claims to Divine favor, its boasted heraldry, 
its hereditary prejudices, its formulary of types and 
shadoAvs, priests and blood, altar and victim — the fossil 
remains of an antiquated and exploded system — conse- 
crated, however, by the hopes and faith of generation 
after generation, and hoary with the seal of ages, but 
perverted by apostates to the purposes of pride and par- 
tyism. The religion of Christianity was opposed to 
both of these, and proposed to recruit its army from 
them; hence its movements were aggressive and its ob- 
ject conquest. Vicissitude, temptation, trial, persecu- 
tion, and suffering in all its forms were to be met and 
endured by those who embraced its faith, raised its 
standard and supported its cause. Paul was advised of 
all this. To use a favorite figure of his own, he knew 
that he was to enter upon a "fight." But he was un- 
dismayed at the prospect before him. He ^vas prepared 
for any and for every emergency. As might have been 
expected, from his first entrance upon his high embassy, 
he was assailed from every quarter, from Jewish syna- 
gogue and heathen temple, from fierce rabble and cruel 
power. 

Persecutions dogged his footsteps from city to city, 
from kingdom to kingdom, from country to country. 
Like a personified ubiquity, it met him at every step. 
It had gorged its hellish appetite with the blood of the 
incarnate Master, yet it panted with peculiar thirst for 
that of His greatest apostle. Bonds, imprisonments, 
stonings and scourgings, were the responses he received 
for his messages of love and peace. Humanity weeps 



246 MEN AND THINGS 

at his own simple recital of his sufferings. ISTor did he 
ever repine at the probable honors he sacrificed as a Ro- 
man Proconsul or a member of the Sanhedrim, in em- 
bracing the religion of the despised I^azarene. He 
never complained at the hardness of his lot, the burden 
of his labors, the severity of his afflictions, the inten- 
sity of his sufferings. He never faltered in his purpose. 
If he exclaimed in reference to the magnitude of the 
duties before him, "Who is suSicient for these things ?" 
the reply v^as, "I can do all things through Christ 
strengthening me." He conferred not with flesh and 
blood. In the midst of affliction, suffering, trial and per- 
secution, he gloried in tribulation, and felt, in response 
to a sublime faith, that "this light affliction, which was 
but for a moment, would work out for him a far more 
exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Greatness is 
developed either in doing or suffering. Paul displays 
it in both. These two grand achievements of virtue are 
exemplified in every act and circumstance of his Chris- 
tian life. What a grand and glorious conception he had 
of the philosophy of the religion of Christ, when he 
exclaimed, "I take pleasure in persecutions, in re- 
proaches, in necessities, in distresses for Christ's sake, 
for when I am weak then I am strong." Adversity 
shows the moral manhood that is in us. It is not diffi- 
cult to be great in prosperity, brave in the absence of the 
enemy, and fearless when we are out of danger. It is 
the fire that discovers the pure gold. If he had been a 
mere time-server, he would have cowered before the in- 
sane yell of the maddened devotees of Diana at Ephe- 
sus, the clamorous rabble at Jerusalem, and the infu- 



MEN AND THINGS 247 

riated mob at Thessalonica. But thoroughly imbued 
with the spirit of his mission, and the importance of his 
message, he is, everywhere and under all circumstances, 
the same peerless herald of the Cross. He vindicates 
the claims of his Master to the Messiahship, from the 
authority of the prophets, upon the steps of the castle 
at Jerusalem, to the confusion of the Jews, and in the 
judgment hall at Csesarea, to the astonishment of Festus. 
He proclaimed to the Areopagus in the midst of Mars' 
Hill, at Athens, the unknown God whom the Athenians 
ignorantly worshipped. He stood in the shadow of the 
Pantheon, upon the scenes of the triumphs of Demos- 
thenes ; and with the arm of Hercules, hurled the thun- 
derbolts of a greater than Jupiter against the idolatry 
of the Gentiles. And yet with the humility of a serv- 
ant, he gathered sticks at Melita to warm his ship- 
wrecked companions. He unrolled the flag of the Cross 
by the Fane of Venus, at Corinth, totius Grecise lumen, 
among her thronging thousands, and yet he plied the 
lowly trade of the humble tent-maker around the quiet 
fireside of Aquila and Priscilla. He could wish him- 
self accursed from Christ for the salvation of the Jews, 
and yet he pronounced the bitter malison: "God shall 
smite thee, thou whited wall," upon Ananias, their 
high priest. He was not a whit behind the very chiefest 
of the apostles, and yet he was less than the least of the 
saints. He was the storm-god of the tempest, and the 
genius of the zephyrs. These antitheses were not an- 
tagonisms, were not contradictions, but the extremes of 
a perfect character, at once, both unique and harmo- 
nious. They doubtless conspired to impress the multi- 



248 MEN AND THINGS 

tude with widely different views respecting this re- 
markable man. Regarded as the tutelary divinity of 
eloquence at Lystra, he was denounced as a babbler it 
Athens. Supposed by th'e barbarians on the Island to 
be a murderer, when the viper fastened its fangs in his 
hand, they thought him a god when he shook it un- 
harmed into the fire. 

He was as abundant in labors as he was patient in 
suffering. His travels, sermons, debates, defenses, 
speeches and ^\Titings are the everlasting monuments of 
his labors. Every Sabbath bell proclaims, and every 
church spire attests throughout Christendom, the glo- 
rious results of his life and labors. We look through the 
dust and moss of eighteen centuries and behold him in 
the closing scene of his life. The wisdom of the Senate 
had rejected the suggestion of Caesar to enroll the name 
of Jesus among the divinities of the Pantheon, Still 
the banner of the Cross floated by his eagles even in 
Rome. But its bravest knight, although a victor, was 
a captive. Contemplate him in this his last hour of con- 
flict and of triumph; in chains and in prison, con- 
demned to die and awaiting the hour of his execution ; 
sitting upon the straw of his dungeon, with the meagre 
remnants of his stationery lying upon the stone, on 
which he had just written his last letter. There he sits, 
of diminutive stature and slightly deformed person, scar- 
red with the terrible conflicts of life's great battle ; his 
brow calm, his countenance placid, the Christian's 
deathless hope sparkling from his eye and the martyr's 



MEN AND THINGS 249 

smile of triumph playing upon his lip. He is iminter- 
ested in the high debates of the Senate, the inflamma- 
tory harangues of the forum, or the wild shouts of the 
populace as they welcome the returning victor, who 
bears to the feet of Caesar the crowns of subjugated 
kingdoms. He surveyed the present, forecast the future, 
and retrospected the past. In looking over the fields 
of his conflicts and triumphs, he beheld no trampled 
vineyards, no desolated gardens, no sacked cities, no 
burnt villages, no smouldering ruins nor blood-dyed 
battlefields. He heard no widow's wail nor orphan's 
cry, nor shriek of violated virtue. Oh ! no, none of these 
for the weapons of his warfare were not carnal; but 
every field was strown with the scattered wreck of de- 
caying Judaism, and piled with the ruins of the Em- 
pire of Sin. The dismantled fortress of Idolatry had 
disgorged its captive thousands, to breathe the air of 
truth with which Christ made them free indeed. Joy 
and peace, and hope, and light, and life and love were 
the monuments that marked the spots where his vic- 
tories were won. 

He bequeathed to his race this magnificent autobiog- 
raphy, unapproached and unapproachable by anything 
in history, sacred or profane. 

"For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of 
my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, 
I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. 
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteous- 



250 MEN AND THINGS 

ness, which the Lord, the Eighteous Judge, shall give 
me at that day." 

The trial is past, the fight is ended, and the guerdon 
won. 

He sealed his discipleship with the blood of martyr- 
dom, and dying, left a name that, like the gorgeous 
splendors of a summer's sunset, pours up the horizon of 
history a stream of posthumous glory, that makes the 
world radiant with the light of a deathless hero. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 
Bishop A. G. Haygood. 

So much has been said and written, and so well ard 
tenderly said, and written of the dead Bishop, that it 
would seem to be superfluous to add more. But these 
beautiful tributes have come through the mist of tears ; 
and from tongues and pens tremulous with the emotions 
of grief. His great life deserves contemplation and 
analysis in the calm light of history and philosophy. 

Like Alexander Hamilton and the younger Pitt, Hay- 
good was great from the beginning. Hamilton was an 
orator and statesman at the age of seventeen ; the trusted 
military counsellor of Washington at twenty; led the 
last charge of Continentals for liberty at Yorktown at 
twenty-five; suggested a written constitution for the 
government of the people — whose independence his 
sword had done so much to achieve — and stood at the 
head of the American bar before he was thirty; was 
secretary of the treasury at thirty-four ; at the touch of 
his magic genius a stream of prosperity fertilized a des- 
sert of bankruptcy and made it blossom as the rose. 

William Pitt was a member of parliament at twenty- 
one; British premier at twenty-five, holding the high 
office at the request of the king — in defiance of all pre- 
cedent against the adverse vote of the commons — allied 
nations against the ambitious schemes of the Man of 

251 



252 MEN AND THINGS 

Destiny, and, at the age of thirty, stood alone, the 
peerless statesman of Europe. 

They each died young, and at the same age — forty- 
seven; Hamilton, the first thinker, writer, constitu- 
tional lawyer and financier of a hemisphere ; and Pitt, 
the most accomplished orator, statesman and diplomat 
of Europe ; the one, wept by a continent ; the other 
mourned by a kingdom. 

Haygood, at the age of twenty-one, commenced his 
life work on a totally different, less famous, but more 
important line; junior preacher on the Watkinsville 
circuit; rapidly rising to the charge of a circuit, thence 
to stations, army chaplain, conference secretary, pre- 
siding elder, delegate to the General Conference, Sun- 
day-school secretary, author, college president, editor 
of the church paper, elected to (but declined) the Epis- 
copate, fraternal delegate to the General Conference of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, agent of the Slater 
fund, elected bishop the second time, which office was ac- 
cepted — excelling in each and all of these high posi- 
tions. Stricken at fifty-seven with the shaft of death, 
in the full-orbed splendor of his moral, intellectual and 
spiritual meridian ; he passed in a blaze of glory, from 
the field of conflict to the crown of martyrdom, his 
death sending a thrill of sorrow round the world. How 
blessings brighten in their flight ! 

The value of such a life and character to the world 
will never be known until revealed in the "final consum- 
mation." His great gifts^ powers, and services were 
not duly estimated by all while he lived. He was mis- 
understood by some, misjudged by others, and misrep- 



MEN AND THINGS 253 

resented by a few. This annoyed and grieved him. 
Indifferent as Mansfield to the applause of the multi- 
tude, he enjoyed, like Canning, the approval of the 
wise and good. Some of his eulogists have intimated 
that he was not an orator, others that he was not a 
scholar. This needs explanation. They doubtless .mean 
that he was not an orator after the type and style of 
Pierce and Prentiss. And who living or dead ever 
was ? His was not the rounded, sonorous, pompous style 
of Cicero. He did not speak to the gallery nor play to 
the grandstand; nor did he scatter bouquets of dainty 
flowers sprinkled with rose water upon his audience; 
to the delectation of esthetic imbeciles or sentimental 
enthusiasts. Yet he was an orator of the very highest 
order of a particular school of this divine art. Grace- 
ful in attitude and action, distinct in enunciation, al- 
ways emphasizing the right word, using precisely the 
proper word and the fewest possible in number, to give 
the thought the greatest force, severe in invective, and 
melting in pathos, Avith a voice as clear as a clarion, 
and a soul all aglow with light from on high; he sent 
from pulpit and platform — to the heart and consciences 
of men and women, great, concrete truths — burdened 
with the responsibilities of time and pregnant with the 
destinies of eternity, with a power that few men in 
this or any age ever equalled. Those, who, at a country 
campmeeting, at eleven o'clock on Sunday, at the close 
of the war — heard him arraign and denoimce the domi- 
nant sins of the times, upon the text : "Because iniquity 
abounds the love of many shall wax cold," had the privi- 
lege of witnessing the exhibition of a power of invec- 



254 MEN AND THINGS 

tive that Brougham never equalled. And those who 
have heard him upon the Master's touch of the leper, 
heard a depth of pathos soimded that Summerfield 
never reached. 

His style was suggestive. He expressed the control- 
ling central thought of a subject; but in such logical 
and harmonious connection as to keep an intelligent 
hearer busy, filling in those that were suggested. 
And, usually, there was more thought suggested by him, 
that was expressed by others who were esteemed good 
preachers or speakers. So, of his writings. There is 
more pure thought scattered along to be read between 
the lines than most writers express in the lines. He 
never failed either to convince, or enlighten, or edify 
his auditors — always interested, and often charmed 
them. 

But it has been intimated that he was not an accurate 
scholar. Those who make this intimation, mean, I sup- 
pose, that he was not a scholar in the sense of wan- 
dering about among lizzards, in the ruins of Babylon, 
searching for a scratch or a mark on a brickbat to prove 
who was the principal workman, in building Babel; 
or how many bricks it would take to complete the job. 
ISTor of the enthusiast who would spend one-half of a 
life-time, with a pick and shovel, digging through strata 
of forgotten ages, after the dead root of a Greek verb, 
that was obsolete before Homer sung or Troy fell; and 
when he thought he had found it, spend the other half 
in defending his opinion of its meaning. If to know 
God and men, books and things, if to understand the 
laws and truths of the kingdom of truth and grace — 



MEN AND THINGS 255 

as disclosed in revelation, and the kingdom of nature 
as revealed in science, if to understand thoroughly, the 
greatest living, and read fluently, two of the greatest 
dead languages of the earth; if to understand himself 
and be able to teach the mental and logical process by 
which the truth is discovered ; if to know all the great 
events of history — ancient and modern — that have 
shaped the course of civilization and controlled the des- 
tinies of nations ; and if to know the obligation of duty 
in all the relations of life, and how to discharge it, — 
constitute scholarship, — then, he was a scholar of rare 
attainments. He was an orator, scholar, theologian, 
statesman, philosopher, philanthropist, patriot and 
Christian. Some may deny to him statesmanship. Let 
us see if his claims to this distinction are well founded. 
At the close of the war, the Southern people — chagrined 
with the humiliation of defeat and appalled at the out- 
rages of destruction — stood aghast at the magnitude of 
the race problem with which they were confronted. In- 
telligence, patriotism and virtue were disfranchised and 
ostracized ; while ignorant negroes from the cotton fields 
were ordaining State constitutions. How were the 
races to live together ? What was to be done with the 
negroes? ISTo greater social and political problem ever 
appealed to statesmanship for solution. Haygood 
solved it in four words, and three of them monosylla- 
bles. These words were the title of a book — ''Our Bro- 
ther in Black." Their uniqueness arrested public at- 
tention. Their wisdom appealed to the public sense of 
justice, and their philanthropy secured the support of 
the wise and the patriotic. This title, by implication. 



256 MEN AND THINGS 

epitomizes the book — justice in dealing with the negro 
— his education in letters, in morals — and especially in 
the industrial arts. This unpretentious book, more 
than a decade in advance of public sentiment, has done 
more to disarm sectional and promote national frater- 
nity, than all the frothy speeches made at banquets or 
in congress, during the last thirty years. Accepting the 
agency of the Slater fund, he illustrated by his work, 
what he taught in his book. But is his solution a suc- 
cess ? Let the speech of Booker Washington, and the 
colored exhibit at the late Atlanta Exposition answer. 
The fame of Bishop Haygood does not rest upon the 
evidence of brass bands, processions and the newspaper 
puffs of paid correspondents. It rests on the granite 
foundation of what he was and what he did. The 
measure of true greatness is the amount and extent of 
service rendered to others. This infallible test has been 
established by an authority, from which there is no 
appeal. 

"Whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be serv- 
ant of all." Great, as he unquestionably was, in his 
gifts and attainments, his chief claim will forever stand 
upon the entire, unselfish and unremitting consecration 
of all that he had, and all that he was, to the service of 
the Lord and to his kind. This service explored every 
part of his Master's vineyard and permeated every in- 
terest of humanity. ^ATiether he was the official head 
of a particular department of Church work, he was al- 
ways a leader, if not the leader in it ; and this is true of 
all the departments and enterprises of his Church. He 
was undismayed by opposition. ISTeither elated with 



MEN AND THINGS 257 

success nor discouraged by defeat. ''Instant in season 
and out of season;" always ready to aggi-essively ad- 
vance or heroically defend the truth, in pulpit or coun- 
cil, on platform or hustings — meeting bishops, boards, 
cormnittees, traveling through rain and sun, in heat and 
cold, in day and night, always and everywhere in full 
armor — another veritable Knight of the Leopard, 
ready for combat with any Saracen who opposed the 
claims of his Master, or assailed the interest of his king- 
dom. Xo summer vacation, nor pleasure trip to Eu- 
rope ever allured him fram the dust and strife of the 
field, where the battle raged for God and humanity. 
It is impossible in a paper like this, to even summarize 
a tithe of the great things he has done. All he did and 
all he thought was gi-eat. He lived in a realm and 
dwelt on a plain of faith and thought, occupied by few 
men of this world. His great head, heart and hand, 
all through his life, scattered the seeds of a harvest that 
will be gathered all along the coming ages. He was 
the incarnate genius of work ; and all his work was for 
others. There was a felicity in his death ; he had done 
enough. He needed rest. With him ''To live was 
Christ, to die was gain." He fell with his armor on, 
and his face to the foe — combining the integrity of 
Soule, the intellect of Doggett, the saintliness of Mar- 
vin, the spirit of Pierce, with the toil of Asbury and 
McKendree — he goes to history, among the foremost 
men in the illustrious roll of American Methodism. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

Causes of Ckime and the Best Method of 
Pkevention. 

The primal cause of crime is the hereditary taint of 
sin in human nature. The remedy, regeneration, be- 
longs to the realm of the spiritual. "Ye must be born 
again." The exciting cause is the presence of tempta- 
tion. The remedy for this is avoidance and resistance. 
There is infinite wisdom in the utterance, "Lead us not 
into temptation, but deliver us from evil." 

Crimes may be classified into two divisions, namely, 
those that flow from sensualism, and those that spring 
from the intellectual side of our being. In both cases 
it is the prostitution of powers designed by divine wis- 
dom to promote human happiness. The question is, 
what is the cause of crime and how can it be prevented ? 
In every age of this world's history, there has raged a 
conflict between the opposing forces of good and evil. 
This conflict is perhaps more intense now than at any 
former period. One great cause of the increase of 
crime is the almost total abdication of the parental duty 
of properly training children in the home circle. The 
home is society in embryo. It is the State in incip- 
iency. It is the granite foundation upon which the 
church rests. The selection of Abraham as founder 
of the Jewish commonwealth and church was based on 



258 



MJS72V AND THINGS 259 

the fact that he governed his house. ''Train up a child 
in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not 
depart from it," is the inspired truth of Kevelation. 
The experience and observation of the ages have crystal- 
ized this truth into the aphorism, "As the twig is bent 
the tree is inclined." The careful training of children 
in the home, God's ordained institution, in the pro- 
visions of the Decalogue as matter of law, and in the 
doctrines of the Sermon on the Mount as the expression 
of love, will form the highest type of virtuous character, 
and present the surest guarantee against crime. The 
Sunday-school with its perfunctionary performance 
and the common school with its routine of daily lessons, 
while they may aid, they can not possibly substitute the 
constant, watchful, patient parental training of the 
home. It is this training that forms good character; 
it is its neglect that makes criminals. The moral les- 
sons of the pulpit come in the cold abstract, and do 
not reach children. The principal cause of all the 
crimes resulting from sensualism comes from two insti- 
tutions, namely, the tolerated brothel and the licensed 
saloon. This truth is so manifestly self-evident that 
it would be worse than a waste of words to argue it. 
'Not is it necessary to list the long catalogue of horrible 
crimes of debauchery, slaughter and suicide, with their 
train of Avretchedness, blight and ruin that flows from 
their bitter and poisoned fountain. To suppress these 
by moral suasion is about as practicable as to arrest a 
cyclone with a feather. The only successful means of 
suppression is the imperial edict of the law, vigorously 
and rigidly enforced. It is less difficult to make a good 



260 MEN AND THINGS 

man or woman by proper training in childhood, than by 
reformation after they become confirmed in crime in 
manhood and womanhood. The worship of gentleness, 
culture, purity and love, around the sacred altar of 
home, in which duty is the daily sacrifice, is the surest 
way to prevent it in the future. To remove the tempta- 
tion as far as practicable, and to punish the hardened 
criminals with absolute certainty, is the most effectual 
method of protecting individuals and society. That 
class of crimes which spring from the intellectual side 
of the human nature is the offspring of the vices of idle- 
ness and pride, and the passion of avarice. Too lazy 
to work, and too impatient to wait, the get-rich-quick 
demon seizes them, and a long list of frauds, thefts and 
robberies, ranging in turpitude and magnitude, from 
the snatching of a dime purse on the street by a negro 
footpad, to the plunder of Bengal by Warren Hastings, 
is inflicted upon society. 

This dark catalogue includes every variety in amount 
of booty, and every grade in type of villiany. It draws 
its recruits from those who should be of the highest 
classes of society, who ought to promote its interests and 
exemplify its virtues. It includes both sexes, as witness 
Senators Mitchell and Burton, Madame Humbert and 
Cassie Chadwick. Young men of promise, middle-aged 
men of culture, and old men of wealth, rob widows and 
orphans, impoverish stockholders and depositors. An- 
other class of criminals, pickpockets, rob stores, blow 
open safes, wreck trains and assassinate the aged and 
infirm, for the pittance their toil and self-sacrifice had 
laid up for a rainy day. These crimes seem to be in- 



MEN AND THINGS 261 

creasing in frequency and tragic horror. A prophecy 
of evil portent to our civilization, is found in the popu- 
lar, and legal disregard of the sanctity of the institution 
of marriage, the impunity with which its dissolution is 
sought, and the facility with which it is obtained. 
Against the social and civic evils of divorce Christian 
people have protested in vain. This evil has grown so 
rapidly and been so destructive of the joys of home life 
as at last to arouse the public conscience to some appre- 
ciation of its magnitude. The antidote for this evil is 
the repeal of the law that provides for divorce, or to re- 
duce the grounds upon which it may be granted, to the 
single one authorized in the 'New Testament. The 
number and character of the gi'ounds upon which it may 
be granted, in conservative Georgia, have reduced the 
cable of wedlock to the weakness of a cobweb. The un- 
wise, not to say wicked, divorce law is the fruitful source 
of numberless debasing crimes that sap and imdermine 
the foundations of our social system. To thoroughly 
arrest this downward social and moral gravitation, only 
requires a short, simple act of the legislature. The leg- 
islature has provided, by long and elaborate laws, when 
birds may be killed, doves baited and fish caught. But 
small matters, like the sacredness of marriage, the pu- 
rity of the home, and the preservation of our social sys- 
tem seem to have escaped its attention. There is an- 
other crime of great moral turpitude committed with un- 
blushing audacity, amazing frequency, and practical 
impunity. This is the crime of perjury. This crime 
assails the very citadel of truth itself. It endangers 
every human right and interest. The law has at- 



262 MEN AND THINGS 

tempted to prevent and punish it, but it has blundered 
in the technicality and complexity of its definition; so 
that, though constantly committed, it is seldom pun- 
ished. This definition should be revised and simplified 
so as to facilitate conviction, and secure its punishment. 
There are but two forces available in preventing 
crime, one moral, the other legal. There are other aux- 
iliary forces that may aid or retard these, but they are 
adventitious and may, or may not, operate. It seems 
to me that philanthropists and humanitarians have ex- 
hausted their resources of invention and activity in their 
varied and multiplied efforts to reform criminals and 
prevent crime. Such small success as they may have 
achieved, has been confined mainly to small boys and 
girls fioating like driftwood on its muddy current. 
But these isolated cases, worthy and Christianlike as 
the work is, do not meet the exigency of the case. Tt 
is society in its individual and aggregate relations with 
which sociology is dealing. Crime is war upon society. 
It attacks the absolute rights of life, liberty and prop- 
erty. In the defense of these rights, society, like 
Scipio, should carry the war into Africa. Our Penal 
Code needs some amendments. All forms and degrees 
of larceny, robbery, burglary, and embezzlement should 
be punished with life imprisonment. Safe-blowing, 
train-wrecking, and the kidnapping and holding a person 
for ransom, should be pimished with death. This 
change would eliminate from society the professional 
and incorrigible criminals, relieve its fears, secure its 
peace and protect its property. It may be urged that 
such rigor would be too severe for young offenders, and 



MEN AND THINGS 263 

in cases where small amounts were involved. The re- 
ply is that the constitution clothes the executive with the 
power to pardon or commute. The exercise of this 
power would meet such exceptional cases, if they should 
arise. It may be insisted that this change would be 
extreme and radical ; but it must be remembered that 
desperate diseases require heroic treatment. 

Some observation, and the best thought that I have 
been able to bestow upon the question under considera- 
tion, brings me to the conclusion that reform is needed 
in the following particulars: In the home training of 
the children of the State ; in the repeal or reformation of 
our divorce laws ; in the absolute prohibition of brothels 
and licensed saloons ; in increasing the punishment of 
certain crimes, and the vigorous prosecution and pun- 
ishment of all crimes. It is not supposed that the ac- 
complishment of these reforms would exterminate 
crime, but that it would greatly diminish it there can 
be no reasonable doubt. The sources of crime are pe- 
rennial. The conflict between right and wrong will con- 
tinue as long as time shall last. 

"Vice is a creature of such hideous mien, 
To be hated, needs but to be seen. 

But seen too oft, familiar with its face. 
We first abhor, then pity, then embrace." 

All that human agency can do, is to give the right its 
best support with all the means at command. To suc- 
ceed with these reforms requires the concentrated senti- 
ment, and united effort of all the good people of the 
State. If in harmonious co-operation with the leaders,. 



264 MEl^^ AND THINGS 

the powerful daily press would devote the space in their 
columns filled with the nauseating details of police court 
proceedings, and bridal trousseaus, to the discussion of 
these vital questions; if the pulpit would substitute 
for its dull platitudes and hazj, scientific speculations, 
the vital truths of Kevelation, in thoughts that breathe 
and words that burn ; if legislators, instead of planning 
for higher honors and maneuvering for party advantage 
would raise these questions in the halls of legislation 
and discuss them like statesmen; and if parents would 
appreciate their momentous responsibility to their chil- 
dren and train them in the paths of rectitude, public 
sentiment would be aroused and united, these and other 
reforms secured, crimes diminished, society safe- 
guarded and civilization advanced. 

The late Civil War, directly or indirectly, contributed 
immensely to the increase of crime. Four years of in- 
dulgence in hate and the practice of plunder and slaugh- 
ter, scattered the seeds of harvest which we are now 
reaping. Before emancipation, the home life, constant 
employment and discipline of owner, overseer and pa- 
trol, made the negi-o practically an unknown factor in 
the commission of crime. The withdrawal of these re- 
straints by his emancipation made him its gi-eatest 
quantity. Before the war executions were seldom, now 
they are frequent. Then we had no stockade nor chain- 
gangs, now the State is dotted with them. Then our 
jails and penitentiary were comparatively empty, now 
they are crowded to overflowing. Then the crime, name- 
less here, was scarcely known, except by its definition in 
the Penal Code, now it is almost of daily occurrence. 



MEN AND THINGS 265 

The genius who discovers a preventive for this crime 
will outrank Columbus as a benefactor. Other crimes 
are punished by ordinary legal methods, but outraged 
public opinion falls back on the higher law of "Salus 
populi suprema est lex," and punishes this without the 
expense and tedium of judicial procedure. 

To recapitulate : The primal causes of crime are, Ist, 
The hereditary moral weakness of human nature ; 2nd, 
The existence and presence of temptation; 3rd, The 
adoption of wrong principles and practice of bad habits 
in childhood. The best methods of prevention are, 1st, 
The proper moral training of children by the parents in 
the home ; 2nd, The removal of temptation by all means 
possible; 3rd, Its speedy, certain and severe punish- 
ment. 
April 12th, 1906. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

LiTEEAEY Address Delivered at the Commence- 
ment OF Madison Female College. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The nineteenth century is distinguished for its prog- 
ress and development; its inventions in art, and its 
discoveries in science. This progress has exploded 
cherished theories; and induced the abandonment of 
old methods. In nothing is the advancement of civili- 
zation more strikingly exemplified, than in the inau- 
guration of female colleges, and the recognition of wo- 
man's equality in capabilities of intellect, and her claims 
to superiority in the realms of sentiment. 

It is a star in the diadem of Georgia that she estab- 
lished the first female college in the world, and thus 
led the van of the nations in the endeavor to give the 
widest range, and the fullest development to the powers 
of the female mind. This recognition so long withheld, 
of equality in powers and privileges, has resulted in the 
discovery of new fields of legitimate operation for wo- 
man's enterprise and avocation; and assigned to her, 
her true position, in the domestic, social, moral and in- 
tellectual relations of life. . 

The future historian of the annals of the race, will 
record, as the grandest discovery of the century — so full 
of the marvelous conquests of mind — the true position 

266 



MEN AND THINGS 267 

and high destiny of woman. Sculpture has exliausted 
the resources of its genius in moulding the graces of her 
form. Painting has mingled the hues of the rose and 
lily, to heighten the blushes of her beauty. Poetry has 
festooned her with garlands, woven from the wild flow- 
ers of fancy, to sublimate and etherealize her charms, 
and chivalry has apotheosized her among the divinities 
of its worship, and bowed with devotion at the shrine of 
its idol. But sculpture, painting, poetry, and chivalry, 
have never comprehended the mysteries of her being, the 
magnitude of her labors, nor the gi-andeur of her des- 
tiny. Divine Revelation — source of all truth, presents 
her, as a being of flesh and blood, soul and spirit, sin- 
ning in Eden, and weeping on Calvary, help-meet for 
man; the joy of the home life, the charm of the so- 
cial circle and the ornament of the Christian church. 
She unites in blended harmony, with the gentle graces 
of manner and the bewitching smiles of love, the high 
qualities of patience, endurance and courage. Every 
age of the world, every form of civil government, every 
system of religion, and every type of civilization finds 
her rising to an equality with great emergencies, and 
displaying rare powers for sacrifice and achievement. 

I invoke your attention, as not inappropriate to this 
occasion, to the consideration of Woman's patriotism. 

!N^o merely secular interest is of equal importance 
with civil government, which defines and protects 
human rights, public and private, absolute and rela- 
tive. Patriotism — unselfish sacrifice for the public 
weal, deep solicitude for the common interest, faithful 
discharge of public duties, — has always held a high 



268 MEN AND THINGS 

place in the catalogue of public virtues. "Render unto 
Csesar the things that are Csesar's," was the utterance 
of high authority. Woman's love is the inspiration of 
patriotism in men. If there were no homes made happy 
by the love of devoted wives, there would be no country 
worth defending. If there were no mothers nor sis- 
ters to protect, there would be no incentive to discharge 
the obligations patriotism imposes. 

This inspiration is a perennial influence, controlling 
the conduct of men in the minor duties of citizenship, 
in the unobtrusive walks of peaceful life as well as in 
nerving the arm of valor for the defense of home and 
country, "Where the front of battle lowers." 

It was this subtle, silent power that moved the heart 
of French chivalry, and swelled the song of British 
valor, on the night before the storming of the Malakoff. 
A soldier guarding the outer trenches cried out to his 
comrades "give us a song !" 

"They lay along the batteries' side. 
Below the smoking cannon, 
Brave hearts from Severn, and from Clyde, 
And from the banks of Shannon. 

They sang of love, and not of fame. 

Forgot was Brittain's glory, 
Each heart recalled a different name, 

But all sang: "Annie Laurie." 

Voice after voice caught up the song. 
Until its tender passion, 



ME 2:1 AND THINGS 269 

Rose like an anthem, rich and strong, 
Their battle eve confession. 

Dear girl, her name he dare not speak. 

Yet as the song gTew louder. 
Something upon the soldier's cheek 

Washed off the stains of powder. 

Beyond the darkening ocean, burned. 

The bloody sunset's embers, 
While the Crimean Vallies burned, 

How English love remembers. 

An Irish Nora's eyes are dim. 

For a singer dumb and gory. 
An English Mary mourns for him. 

Who sang of "Annie Laurie." 

The memory of loved ones at home was the in- 
spiration of those heroes in life, and their solace in 
death. The world will never know how many a soldier 
boy has breathed to his breaking heart with his dying 
breath, the name of its idol. 

But it is not so much, of the patriotism which women 
inspire in men, as that which they exhibit in themselves, 
that I am to speak. I do not seek illustration of my 
theme, in the example of the world-renowned women, 
whose triumphs in founding empires, conducting wars 
and commanding armies, constitute the romance of 
history. Women like Margaret of Anjou and the maid 
of Orleans. But the thrilling story of Esther com- 



270 MEN AND THINGS 

bines so many of the true elements of patriotism, that I 
will be pardoned for allusion to it. It presents the 
high resolve to save her kindred and her nation. Wom- 
anly strategy in devising the methods to accomplish 
her purpose, heroic daring in approaching the King to 
ask the abrogation of a law of the Medes and Persians, 
sublime faith -in the success of her enterprise, the 
self-sacrifice that periled life upon the issue of the un- 
dertaking; success vindicated the wisdom of her strat- 
egy, the claim of her courage and the confidence of her 
faith. 

It is said that women do not reason, that they sub- 
stitute impulse for logic. There is no greater mistake ; 
they may not, and do not, — like cautious, politic men, — 
toil through the labyrinthine mazes of major and minor 
propositions, syllogisms and sequences, nor do they be- 
wilder themselves with the complex substitues of meta- 
physics. But give them the data, the facts, and mind 
and heart-faith and feeling conduct them at once, to 
the correct conclusion. And from the judgment thus 
formed, who dares enter an appeal ? Csesar disre- 
garded the remonstrances of his wife, went to the Sena:e 
and fell at the hands of assassins. The world furnished 
but one, who had the judgTixent to discover the inno- 
cence, and the courage to interpose for the life of the 
rejected N^azarene. "Have thou nothing to do with 
that just man," said the wife of Pilate to the Governor. 
So long as these two transactions, — one recorded in 
sacred, and the other profane history remain, husbands 
at least, may well tremble to disregard the deliberate 
judgment of their wives, founded in wisdom and an- 



MEN AND THINGS 271 

nouuced in love. Whatever the process may be, — in- 
tuition, inspiration or reason, — the fact is shown to be 
true, by observation, experience and history, that a 
womans' conclusions are seldom wrong. There is so 
much love — of hope and heart, — of faith and feeling, 
in her patriotism, that it is diflScult to discover its 
source, define its extent, or measure its value. It is 
neither confined to periods nor occasions; it is an attri- 
bute of the sex, — distinguishing them always and every- 
where. Its manifestations are multiform. They em- 
brace her smiles and tears, her notes of warning and 
words of encouragement, and a thousand acts, unde- 
fined and undefinable, ranging, from the administration 
of cordial to a dying soldier, to the founding of an 
empire for the government of millions. It crops out in 
the material example and precept, in the family, the 
formation of communities, States and society; in its 
sympathy for the sorrowful and its ministrations to 
the suffering. History has embalmed in immortality, 
the name of Florence N^ightingale ; and yet thousands 
of American women, unknown to song, story and fame, 
have done all that she did. They have breathed the 
poison of hospitals and braved the slaughters of en- 
sanguined fields to mitigate the pain of the wounded, 
and soothe the anguish of the dying. 

The late war furnished a severe test of women's ca- 
pabilities for doing. The resignation with which she 
submitted to privations, the cheerfulness with which she 
endured labor and the faith with which she offered 
her oblations, are testimonies of her patriotism. But 
her ministries did not cease with the war. Her liber- 



272 MEN AND THINGS 

ality commemorates valor in monuments; and her af- 
fection, in the annual tribute of flowers and tears. The 
severest, the crucial test is found in what she suffers — -. 
what she bears. History records the deeds of men, the 
results of battles, the fame of heroes ; and throws a 
glamour over the horrors of slaughter, and in their 
wild excitement they forget their fallen comrades; 
time mitigates their grief, and business engages their 
attention. But it is not so with the mothers of 
the land. Like those of "Cornelia" their sons were 
their jewels; and though they sent them with the 
heroism that immortalizes the Spartan Matron, yet the 
wounds are unhealed in the hearts from w^hich they 
were torn ; and in sorrow and silence they bear their 
grief and never complain. 

The wives made widows by the w^ar, have struggled 
on, toiling for bread to appease the hunger of helpless 
orphans ; committing them in faith and in tears, to Him 
who hears the young ravens wdien they cry ; and no his- 
tory records their trials, and no one ever dreams that 
each moment wrings a burning blood-drop from a 
broken heart. 

The maiden whose only love fills an unmarked, sol- 
dier's grave, gently smiles in the festive throng, but 
the subdued sorrow of a languid eye, and the slightest 
palor of a sweet lip tell a story of anguish that would 
make the angels weep. 

During the war our country-women passed around 
guards, against orders, crossed the lines without pass- 
ports, and periled life without fear, to reach the ob- 
jects of their love, and the recipients of their benefac- 



MEN AND THINGS 273 

tions, 'No disappointments discouraged their efforts, 
no defeat chilled their ardor and no despair clouded 
their faith. 

On a bright May day at Malmaison, the Empress 
of France and Queen of Italy, passed away. Whisper- 
ing with her last breath, "Isle of Elba-Napoleon." A 
few^ years later by a singular felicity, the "man of 
Destiny" murmured back from the ocean-girded rock, 
his last words in response : "Head of the army, France- 
Josephine !" 

Home — Country — Love! — the trinity that inspires 
patriotism in men and women living, and shrives them 
with sacred ministries, dying. 

A gallant Admiral responded to the question, "Which 
is the most exciting moment of battle ?" "the moment 
in which the deck is sprinkled with sand to catch the 
blood." 

This college sends out, each year, her class of gradu- 
ates, to enter upon the struggles of duty in the cruise 
of life ; and these commencement ceremonies sprinkle 
the deck of the ship upon which they sail, with sand to 
catch the blood shed in the strife. 

Young ladies of the college, and especially of the 
graduating class, allow me to congratulate you upoa 
the completion of your college course, and upon your 
advent into society ; and to say that your new relations 
involve important duties and grave responsibilities. 
Duty is the grandest word in the language of earth. 
It will levy its contributions upon your patience, cour- 
age, faith and hope. Its pathway leads to success, 
honor and happiness. It subdues enemies, overcomes 



274 MEN AND THINGS 

temptations, triumphs in trial, and wins the guerdon 
at last. Your education is not completed; it is only 
commenced. The foundation is laid; it remains for 
you to erect and adorn the superstructure. I appre- 
hend that no student ever left college a thorough scholar. 
All that the best institution proposes to do, is to de- 
velop and discipline the powers of the mind, train it in 
the proper methods of thought, and supply it the ele- 
mentary principles and ascertained facts of science; 
and thus enable the student to complete the work of 
education. 

Again allow me to remind you that an ardent attach- 
ment for kindred and race, for the institutions of home 
and country, does not meet the behests of your being 
and destiny. You remember the beautiful story of 
"Paradise and the Peri." The Angel who kept the 
gate of light, beheld the Peri weeping. 

"I^ymph of a fair but erring line, 
He gently said, 'One hope is thine.' 

'Tis written in the book of fate. 
The Peri yet may be forgiven. 
Who brings to Heaven's eternal gate, 
The gift that is most dear to Heaven. 
Go seek it, and redeem thy sin, 
'Tis sweet to let the pardoned in." 

Her first offering was liberty's last libation — a drop 
of patriot blood. This offering was rejected. Her 
next was the lover's dying sigh, but this moved not the 
crystal bar. She then presented the repentant sinner's 
tear and the oatps moved ajar. 



MEN AND THINGS 275 

"And well the enraptured Peri knew, 
Twas a bright smile the Angel threw, 
From Heaven's gate to hail that tear. 
Her harbinger of glory near." 

The claims of religion are not met in love or patriot- 
ism; they can not be ignored with impunity, nor sup- 
plied by substitutes. Poetry regards woman an Angel, 
and Kevelation represents her as fallen. Believing the 
truth of the one, and adopting the fancy of the other, T 
declare her, though fallen, an Angel still. 

H. P. Bell. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

Semi-Centennial Address. 
delivered at the college chapel^ gumming^ ga., 

SATURDAY EVENING^ JULY 18tH^ 1902, 
AT 7 O^CLOCK P. M. 

Ladies and Gentlemen and My Brethren of LaFayette 
Lodge : 

It has been characteristic of the human mind, in all 
the ages to mark by some expression of commemoration 
its appreciation of important events. At the IsTational 
Capitol the highest shaft in the world honors the great- 
est man of history. We celebrate the birth of Con- 
stitutional Liberty by appropriate ceremonies on the 
Fourth of July, its natal day. We commemorate the 
great fact of the resurrection and the cherished truth 
of immortality by the festivities and worship, annually, 
of Easter. 

In conformity with this custom of civilized people, 
LaFayette Lodge ISTo. 44, of Free and Accepted Mason- 
ry, have thought proper by this occasion and these fes- 
tivities to celebrate the semi-centennial of its existence. 
In my opinion it is wise to thus pause in life's pil- 
grimage, and retrospect the past, survey the present, 
and forecast, as far as practicable, the future. 

In addition to this, the Worshipful Master has an- 
nounced that this occasion of the commemoration of the 



276 



MEN AND THINGS 277 

fiftieth anniversary of the lodge's life, is intended as 
a personal compliment and expression of goodwill to 
your speaker, and a recognition of the length of his 
membership in the lodge, and his character and serv- 
ices in the community in which that fifty years have 
been spent. 

Allow me, my dear brethren, to say to you that for 
this expression of your esteem and endorsement of my 
humble character and services, I give to you in return, 
the gratitude — the profoundest gratitude — of a heart 
that loves every one of you. I state the truth when I 
say that I would not exchange this expression of the 
love and confidence of my brethren, friends and neigh- 
bors 

"For all the wealth of every urn. 
In which unnumbered rubies burn." 

I may be pardoned here for a personal reference. 
There is not a living soul in this town who was here 
when I came. There is not a living member of I.a- 
Fayette Lodge who belonged to it when I joined — not 
one. When I recur to the x>eople of Gumming, old and 
young, fifty years ago, and remember with mournful 
pleasure the delightful associations of young life, the 
friendships formed in school, the festal joys of social 
life, and the sweet thrill of love's first young dream, 
and realize that the friends of those days — ■ 

"Are all scattered like roses in bloom. 
Few to the bridal most to the toomb. 



278 MEN AND THINGS 

I feel like one who treads alone, 
Some banquet hall deserted; 
Whose beauty fled, whose garlands dead, 
And all but me departed." 

Fifty years; — nearly twice the age of a generation. 
What changes ! What momentous changes have been 
wrought in the last fifty years. What memories of 
joys and sorrows, of festal throngs and funeral crowds ! 
Then, the graves were scattered over yonder on the 
hill, but now, they are as thick as" autumn leaves that 
strew the brook of Vallombrosa." Think of the changes 
affecting humanity in all departments of life, of human 
thought and endeavor, in the last fifty years. That 
dark continent of Africa has been explored and gone i;o 
Geography. That stupendous crime against humanity, 
the African Slave Trade, has been suppressed. The 
Empire of the Bourbons and Bonapartes has passed into 
the Eepublic of France. The South African Govern- 
ment has passed under the British Crown. The great 
Empire of Chas. V., which four hundred years ago 
dominated the earth, has surrendered its last inch of 
ground on the Western Hemisphere. The Iron Gate 
of the Orient has been unbolted, and Japan and China 
taken into the companionship of the mystic mesl-.es of 
the telephone and telegraph, and the people of differ- 
ent and distant nations talk to each other as member.? 
of a family circle. 

Engineering skill and enterprise has bored the gran- 
ite base of the Alps, and scaled the dizzy heights of the 
Rockies, and the restless tides of trade and travel pour 



MEN AND THINGS 279 

their rushing current under the one and over the othev. 
The engine screams across the earth from Quebec to 
the Vancouvers and from St. Petersburg to Port Ar- 
thur, so that the globe is girded with railways and the 
ocean planted with telegraphs. Koch has discovered 
the microbe theory of human disease, and Pasteur a 
remedy for rabies, and Beatty, a Georgian, has achieved 
one of the most wonderful triumphs of surgery. The 
X-Ray makes visible the most opaque of solid bodies, 
and the genius of Edison has subjected electricity to 
the servitude of vision and machinery. All these in the 
last fifty years ! And to these must be added a war 
engaging in arms three millions that reddened the earth 
and ocean in the blood of fratricidal strife, and struck 
the shackles from four millions of African slaves. 

This is a world of transformation, of transmutation, 
of change, as well as progress. It is said that the 
human body changes every seven years, and that in 
each period of seven years an entirely new body is sub- 
stituted. Change is constantly progressing in the 
human institutions, and in the form of the physical 
globe. Mountains sink and lakes appear on the land. 
Islands rise, and the waters recede into the ocean. But, 
my brethren, there are some things that do not change — 
never change. Truth never changes. Truth is as 
unchangeable as the God who ordained it. Unchange- 
able truth is found and taught in the s;>Tnbols of Free 
Masonry. These truths are revealed by the Author of 
truth, and find expression in His word and law. The 
plumb teaches us precisely in accord with the Divine 
Revelation the obligation upon us to walk uprightly be- 



280 MEN AND THINGS 

fore God and man. "Mark the perfect man, and be- 
hold the upright, for the end of that man is peace." 
"Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who 
shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh up- 
rightly, and worketh righteousness and speaketh the 
truth in his heart." 

The level teaches us the natural equality of the race, 
its identity in the incidents to a common pilgrimage, 
from the cradle to the grave, that we are passing upon 
the same level to a common home and final assize. 

The square is the emblem of virtue, and teaches us 
to measure with mechanical precision, our motives and 
actions by the rules of rectitude as prescribed by the 
provisions of law. The gavel admonishes us to break 
off from our conduct and character, the moral obliqui- 
ties which impair moral symmetry and puts us out of 
harmony with moral rectitude. In practical or opera- 
tive architecture, when the materials for a structure 
have been prepared and adjusted by the proper appli- 
cations of the plumb, level, square and gavel, the trowel 
spreads the cement which unites the different parts into 
a whole, into strength and solidity, so that the building 
rises a thing of strength, symmetry and beauty. These 
simple, familiar implements are indispensable in prac- 
tical or literal masonry. The simple, yet sublime, 
truths taught by them symbolically, are equally indis- 
pensable in adjusting and constructing human charac- 
ter. Contemplate the history of the race, marred and 
blurred by its record of wrongs, frauds, treacheries, in- 
justice, oppression and slaughter — "in which man's in- 
humanity to man, makes countless thousands mourn" — 



MEN AND THINGS 281 

and contrast it with the ideal character of absolute per- 
fection, illustrated and exemplified in the sinless life 
of the crucified Galilean, and say whether hum;m na- 
ture and conduct do not need a vigorous application of 
all the tools that divest them of vices and polish them 
as fit stones for the everlasting temple. 

"Poor ruined race, said the pitying spirit, 
Dearly ye pay for the primal fall. 
Some flowers of Eden ye still may inherit, 
But the trail of the serpent is over them all." 

Have men no passions to be subdued? IS'o appetite 
to be controlled, no habits to be reformed, no hate to be 
overcome? ISTo change or reformation of life to be 
made? Hate is hell, and hell is hate. Have we no 
favors to requite? 'No wrongs to forgive, no sorrows 
to solace, no assistance to render, no help to extend? 
If not, then we do not need the polishing of moral 
masonry. 

Leigh Hunt, in his beautiful legend of Abou ben 
Adhem, illustrates this power of love so earnestly urged 
and strikingly symbolized in the trowel. An angel 
with a book appeared to ben Adhem, who asked what it 
contained. The angel replied, "The names of those 
who love God." "Is my name in the book," said ben 
Adhem. "It is not," replied the angel. "Then write 
my name as one who loves his brother," said ben Adhem. 
The next day the angel showed him the book, and lo! 
ben Adhem's name led all the rest. 

My brethren, we do not know and do not appreciate 



282 MEN AND THINGS 

the privileges and value of that life \Yhieh finds expres- 
sion in helpfulness to others. True greatness consists 
in the unselfish service to others — 

"He that hath soothed a widow's woe, 
Or dried an orphan's tear, doth know — 
There is something here of Heaven." 

In this world of chance and change, of joy and sor- 
row, of trial and triumph, of strength and weakness, 
we have vast opportunities to do others good, with an 
infinitely small outlay of effort. And just in the pro- 
portion that we serve and help others, do we approxi- 
mate the ideal type of real true life. The great God 
has so affiliated duty and pleasure, that the highest re- 
ward for helping others is the consciousness of having 
bestowed it, and with this consciousness is connected 
fearlessness to meet the adjudication of the final trial. 

Every mason is confronted in his lodge with these 
symbols of truth, and upon the altar, with an open 
Bible containing God's revealed will and eternal law. 
Free masonry urges in all her teachings, conformity to 
that will and obedience to that law. Perfect and abso- 
lute compliance with the lessons of free masonry makes 
of a man all that can be made, except one thing. 
"By the deeds of the law no man can be justified.'' 
He is annealed in justification only in the blood of the 
crucified N^azarene, upon the condition of faith. 

LaFayette Lodge has made up her record of half a 



MEN AND THINGS 283 

century. How does the record stand? If all right, it 
will stand forever. Have her members met all their 
obligations? Have her members lived up to her doc- 
trines? Have they strengthened the weak, solaced the 
sorrowing, admonished the erring, visited the sick, fed 
the himgry, clothed the naked and buried the dead? 
If so, we have made the world better, and may claim 
the approval of Him who said: "Inasmuch as ye did 
it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it 
unto me." If our record does not stand, if duties have 
been neglected, obligations violated, wrongs perpetrated, 
then the record is wrong and there is but one solution 
of it : Repentance for the past and improvement in the 
future. 

'No ken nor seer can lift the veil that conceals the 
next fifty years. It is safe to assume that there will bo 
no member of LaFayette Lodge, now present, in life 
fifty years hence. Our pilg-rimage will have ended, our 
privileges and opportunities to help others will hav6 
passed away, and our account and record will have 
been made up to confront us at the final Bar. Let 
these solemn truths incite us to aspirations for a higher 
plane of personal and masonic life, and vitalize us for 
redoubled effort in the faithful discharge of duty in 
all the relations of life. 

Let us — each one — so live that when his feet shall 
brush the dews of Jordan's brink, he may gather "the 
drapery of his couch around him and lie down to pleas- 
ant dreams." 



Appendix 



HE'S! AND THINGS 287 

In Second Confederate Congress. 

Speech of the Hon. H. P. Bell, of Georgia, Delivered 
in the Uouse of Representatives, in Secret Session, 
January 2 J/., 1865, Against the Tax Bill Reported 
hy the Chaiirman of the Committee of Ways and 
Means. 
This bill proposed to continue in force the exist- 
ing legislation imposing taxes, and to increase the 
amount of taxation one hundred per cent. 

The House being in Committee of the whole, Mr. 
Sexton in the chair, Mr. Bell said: 

Mr. Chairman: If I were to consult my own in- 
clination, I should content myself with giving a silent 
vote against the bill now under consideration, but I do 
not feel that I could remain silent without a gross 
dereliction of duty to those who have confided to, me 
the sacred trust of representing their views, their feel- 
ings and their interests upon this floor. The framers 
of the old Constitution denominated the taxing power, 
the vital part of the Constitution. The subject of tax- 
ation, always an important one, is now especially of 
vital concernment to the government, of difficult solu- 
tion by Congress, and of deep and absorbing interest 
to the people. They have granted no right with more 
reluctance than the right to impose upon them the bur- 
dens of taxation, and have confined its exercise exclu- 
sively to agents or representatives of their OAvn selec- 
tion. The bill before the committee proposes to con- 
tinue in force the existing legislation imposing taxes, 
and to increase the amount of the taxes one hundred 



288 MEN AND THINGS 

per cent, upon all subjects of taxation, except upon 
agricultural products; but wbile it does not double the 
tithe, it repeals the law allowing the farmer or agricul- 
turist to credit the tax upon property employed in 
agriculture with his tithe. The discussion, therefore, 
of this bill involves the consideration of our whole 
scheme of taxation as now established by law. And to 
the tax laws, as they now stand and as this bill pro- 
poses to continue them, I am invincibly opposed. And 
I mention as the first ground of my objection their 
complexity. It is not singular that the various acts 
upon this subject are of difficult comprehension, when 
we reflect upon the manner and circumstances under 
which they have been passed. Tax bills have origi- 
nated with the Committee of Ways and Means : the views 
of different members of the committee have been various 
and conflicting; they have been modified and changed 
so as to harmonize them in order that a majority 
might be able to agree upon some sort of measure 
to be reported back to the House, where it encouniered 
at the threshold, a greater contrariety of opinion and a 
multiplied number of amendments, involving increased 
antagonisms and incongruities ; each member in the 
House proposes an aniendmenj: to carry out important 
views, which are often, not thoroughly digested, clearly 
defined, nor felicitously expressed ; some are adopted ; 
others rejected, and, ultimately, a sort of armistice is 
agreed on between belligerent opinions and rival propo- 
sitions, and such a compromise, concluded as will 
harmonize a majority and secure the passage of a meas- 
ure which, at last, entirely commands the approval of 



MEN AND THINGS 289 

no one. Having thus passed the House, it is sent to 
the Senate, referred to the Finance Committee, reported 
back, where it passes through a similar process, and is 
subjected to the same legislative ordeal, resulting in the 
adoption bj the Senate, of sundry amendments, in which 
the House refuses to concur, and finally becomes the sub- 
ject-matter of discussion and settlement by a Conference 
Committee, where the same routine of conflict, amend- 
ment, agreement and compromise transpires, the result 
of which is a conglomerated jumble of legislative non- 
sense and folly. Enacted under these auspices, it is 
not remarkable that those who witnessed and partici- 
pated in the throes of statesmanship in which our tax 
legislation had its birth do not understand the offspring 
of their own genius, and hence it becomes necessary to 
pass a multitude of explanatory statutes, and every ad- 
ditional act but increases the obscurity of the one it 
was intended to explain; it is but adding a deeper 
tint to the darkness of midnight. The tax laws thus 
originally incomprehensible and still more mystified 
by explanatory acts, pass from the laboratory of legis- 
lation into the crucible of construction ; and if those 
w^ho make the law do not know what it means, it is 
difficult to conceive how any one else can comprehend 
its meaning. If Congress, therefore, does not under- 
stand it, it can not reasonably be expected that the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury or the Commissioner of Taxes 
will be able to correctly construe and expound it. And 
although Mr. Memminger is an astute and able lawyer 
and Col. Allen both an able and faithful public officer, 
still the contradictorv and absurd constructions of the 



290 MEN AND THINGS 

Treasury Department demonstrates that neither of 
these high and able functionaries knows what it means. 
To illustrate what I mean and prove the truth of what 
I say, it will be recollected that it was decided that 
under the Act of February 17, 1864, the tax of ten 
per cent, on profits had to be collected on merchandise 
bought before the first of January, 1863. Here is a 
solemn adjudication, an express ofiicial construction of 
the law. Subordinates acted in conformity to this de- 
cision, collected the people's money, and afterwards, the 
construction was overruled and the money collected 
under it had to be refunded. In one instance as much 
as twenty thousand dollars improperly collected, or 
rather collected under what was afterward held to be 
an erroneous interpretation, had to be paid back to the 
citizen by the collector. Again, it was decided that 
profits on produce made prior to 1863, but sold in 1S63, 
was income of 1863. Here a distinct construction upon 
an important question involving the rights of the peo- 
ple, was deliberately made. Subsequent investigation 
satisfied the authorities that the law did not warrant 
the interpretation given, did not mean what they had 
held it to mean; the decision was reversed and it was 
declared that the profits were not liable to be taxed at 
all. It would seem that Mr. Memminger has either be- 
come bewildered in the arcana of this legislation or else 
he determined to depart from the usual and ordinary 
methods of ascertaining the meaning of the law, viz. : by 
exploring the intention of the legislator, etc., and draw 
upon the revellings of a disordered fancy and the In- 
spirations of an erratic imagination to aid him in con- 



MEN AND THINGS 291 

struing it. Under the Act of June 14, 1864, he con- 
strues the word family to include carriage, horses and 
to exclude a large class of slaves — and we have actually 
passed an act at the present session, gravely and wisely 
declaring that horses are not members of the family. 
And what is equally ludicrous, he held that shucks and 
straw, under another provision of the law, meant fodder. 
Shades of all the lexicographers ! Who ever dreamed 
before that horses, under the magic of construction and 
the jugglery of departmental legerdemain could be 
transformed into members of the domestic circle. The 
expositions of these laws have increased their mystery 
and multiplied the difBculties of applying them; they 
have piled "Pelion upon Ossa," and made "confusion 
worse confounded," and as they now stand enacted by 
the legislature and expounded by the department, they 
defy the genius of interpretation. A compound sub- 
tlety in the abstrusities of metaphysics is the perfection 
of clearness and simplicity compared to their hidden 
enigmas ; a blind man without a giTide, in the gloom of 
midniffht in the Mammoth Cave of Kentuckv is sur- 
rounded with floods of noonday light, compared with 
the "unlucky wight" who undertakes to explore their 
labyrinthian mazes. 

Sir, is it possible that Congress can not frame a law 
that can be understood ? Or do you desire to keep the 
people in ignorance of the law by virtues of which the 
government thrusts its hands into their pockets and 
takes their money ? I can hardly think that this legis- 
lation is the result of design ; it is an illegitimate abor- 
tion of chance, the deformed progeny of a, dwarfed 



292 MEN AND THINGS 

statesmanship, and it ought not to be allowed to remain 
longer npon the statute book. 

Mr. Chairman : This scheme of taxation is obnox- 
ious to a still more formidable objection ; this objection 
is based upon the inequality of its provisions, and there- 
fore, the injustice of its operations. This inequality 
results mainly from the adoption of different bases of 
valuation for different species of property. Some prop- 
erty is estimated at the value of 1860, and therefore, 
estimated upon the specie value; other property is es- 
timated at its value in currency at the time of assess- 
ment. Land and negroes are assessed at the value of 
1860, which is the gold standard, and gold and foreign 
exchange are estimated in Confederate currency, and 
its value has been settled by the Treasury Department 
to be eighteen dollars in currency for one in gold or 
foreign exchange ; therefore, the owners of gold and 
foreign exchange are taxed eighteen times as much as 
the owners of land and negi'oes. The injustice of tliis 
discrimination is too manifest to require serious argu- 
ment to expose it. 

Again, property purchased since 1862 is assessed 
upon neither the value in 1860, nor upon the value at 
the time of assessment, but upon the amount of the pur- 
chase-price. Why this basis has been adopted, ignor- 
ing the value of 1860, and the value at the time of as- 
sessment, simply because the property has changed 
ownership, I confess my inability to comprehend. The 
value of property in 1862 was probably double what it 
was in 1860, and perhaps half what it was in 1864 or 
1865. If by adopting this mode of assessment it was 



MEN AND THINGS 29S 

intended to increase the taxes as a sort of punishment 
for purchasing it, it is simply an outrage. At all 
events, this mode of valuation is wholly indefensiblo 
upon any ground of sound logic or recognized political 
economy. 

In further illustration of this ground of objection, it 
will be seen that railroad bonds and stocks, and Con- 
federate bonds are taxed upon the amount due on tJieir 
face. Here still another and different basis of assess- 
ment is adopted, and one that entirely ignores the ques- 
tion of value altogether. This principle of valuation is 
unequal and imjust for the reason that the railroad 
bonds are worth three or four times as much as the 
Confederate bonds; while the tax is assessed upon the 
amount specified in their face without regard to their 
value, the owner of the Confederate bonds pays three or 
four times as much up the value of his property as 
the holder of the railroad bonds. 

The great difficulty upon this subject arises from the 
adoption of the value of 1860 as the basis of assessment. 
The value of property is constantly fluctuating in a rev- 
olution. In estimating it, time, place and circum- 
stances, situation, etc., exert a controlling influence in 
regulating it. The value of the same kind and descrip- 
tion of property is increased in one place while it is 
diminished in another. The proximity and depreda- 
tions of the public enemy may have rendered it useless, 
and for this reason greatly diminished its value since 
1860, while on the other hand many circumstances may 
have conspired to largely increase its value since 1860, 
and still the tax, under this arbitrary rule, is imposed 



294 MEN AND THINGS 

upon the value of 1860, discarding the existing value 
at the time of assessment; Avhen it is notorious that in 
one case the owner pays upon a value that does not ex- 
ist and in the other he does not pay upon a value that 
does exist: or in other words, he pays precisely the 
same amount of taxes upon the diminished that he does 
upon the increased value. In the one case he pays too 
much, in the other he pays too little. When we survey 
the extent of country overrun by the enemy, and look 
at the amount of property that has thereby been di- 
minished in value, while the property in those sections 
of the country not overrun has been largely increased 
in value, the monstrosity of this basis of assessment 
becomes apparent. "What reason can exist for the per- 
petuation of a law, so palpably and manifestly unjust 
and inequitable in its operations? The people will 
apothesize among the tutelary divinities of their L( use- 
hold worship the wisdom of that legislator who relieves 
them from the incubus of this wild and reckless leg- 
islation. 

All the objections to the present scheme of taxation 
can be easily obviated by passing a bill predicated upon 
the ad valorem principle, simple in its terms, just in its 
provisions and equal in its operations. Such a meas- 
ure shall receive my cordial support; imder no cir- 
cumstances will I vote for one of a different kind. I 
will neither share the glory nor divide the responsibil- 
ity of those who adopt a burdensome, unequal and un- 
just system. 

Again, I oppose the scheme of which the bill under 
consideration forms a part, on the grounds that it 



MEN AND THINGS 295 



has been arraigned before the bar of an enlightened 
public opinion and received judgment of condemnation. 
The verdict of the people has been pronounced against 
it. I recognize the distinction drawn by Lord Mans- 
field between the voice of a virtuous and enlightened 
people and the clamor of a mob ; and while I discard and 
contemn the latter, I yield implicit obedience to the 
behests of the former. The people want a plain, sim- 
ple, equitable system of taxation, one that distributes 
its burdens equally and operates alike upon all classes 
of society. This is equality, and this they have a right 
to demand, and with nothing less, in my judgment will 
they be satisfied. 

While I am satisfied that it is not true, yet it would 
seem that the government had exhausted its ingenuity 
in devising a system of measures to irritate, override 
and defy the popular sentiment of the country. 

Sir, this government belongs to the people, they cre- 
ated it, and they are pouring out their blood and treas- 
ure wdth the profusion of a prodigal to establish and 
sustain it, and they have a right to shape its policy and 
control its legislation. The genius of our system of 
all representative government — is, that the government 
derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. 
You can not administer it upon principles antagonistic 
to the popular will in a time of peace, much less in the 
midst of a revolution inaugurated to establish and vin- 
dicate popular rights. The public will must have ex- 
pression through the forms of law, or it will find it 
over the head of authority and in defiance of law. Our 
statesmanship has failed to comprehend the philosophy 



296 MEX AND T H I N G IS 

of the revolution. The governinent can not control pub- 
lic opinion in a free State nor in any form of govern- 
ment in a revolution; it can only guide and direct it. 
You may mount the phaeton, seize the reins and guide 
the coursers, but you can do nothing more. It was the 
popular breath that bore Charles I. from the throne 
to the scaffold; it was the same irresistible power 
that carried Charles II. from exile to the throne, 
Cromwell did not create the revolution — the revo- 
lution created Cromwell, but he had the capacity 
and genius to guide it. And if you persist in forcing 
upon the f)eople a line of policy and a system of meas- 
ures to which they are hostile, you will drive them 
from the support of the government, and the revolution 
will result in disaster and failure. The bill now before 
the committee and our whole legislation upon the sub- 
ject of taxation, is but a link in a chain of measures, 
the tendency of which is to alienate the affections of the 
people, destroy their interest and abate their enthusiasm 
in this struggle. They engaged in this war to se- 
cure and vindicate rights. They expected the protec- 
tion of personal liberty, and received the suspension cf 
the writ of habeas corpus; they looked for the preser- 
vation of personal security, and the country is filled 
with rapine and murder ; they ask for the enjoyment of 
the rights of private property, and the land is ravaged 
with robbers and impressing ofiicers, who sweep over 
the country like locusts, leaving poverty, want and deso- 
lation in their wake. They have "asked bread and 
you have given them a stone." The result of this pol- 
icy is seen in the thinned ranks of your gallant army 



MEN AND THINGS 297 



that desertion has depleted, and in the waning hopes 
and broken spirit of the noblest people on the earth. 

Sir, you may pass this monstrous bill, but you will 
find it one thing to pass it and another to enforce it. 
The people are patient and patriotic, but they are now 
groaning under the burdens of heavy taxation, and I 
announce to you to-day that they can not and will not 
pay the amount imposed by this bill. It will remain a 
dead letter upon the statute book. They do not expect 
to get through the war without the payment of heavy 
taxes ; this they are perfectly willing to do ; but I have 
misconceived their character if they submit cheerfully 
to the wholesale robbery of this iniquitous bill. You 
have impressed their horses and mules and cattle and 
provisions, and taken from them the means of cultiva- 
ting their farms. The enemy has overrun large tracts 
of country in other sections and stolen and carried them 
off. In many portions of the country the bulk of the 
male population is in the army and nobody is left at 
home to make the money with which to pay the taxes now 
required by law. This hour there are hundreds and 
thousands of pure and noble wives, mothers and sisters 
struggling to support helpless families, who are treading 
the frozen ground barefooted, with insufficient clothing 
to protect their persons from the chilling blasts of win- 
ter. The whole country is filled with aching heads, 
anguished bosoms, and bleeding hearts — with the weeds 
of widowhood and the wails of orphanage, and you 
propose to mitigate their sufferings, conciliate their 
affections and energize their patriotism by sticking to 
an irritated public feeling, like the shirt of jSTessus, the 



298 MEN AND THINGS 

exhausting provisions of this monstrous measure. 

There are burdens necessarily incident to war, and 
it is a sacred duty that Congress owes to the people to 
mitigate their weight and severity as far as possible ; to 
let them feel that the government respects their rights, 
appreciates their sacrifices and sympathizes with their 
sufferings. When this is done it will revive the hopes 
of the army and people, re-invigorate and re-inspirit 
them, and they will continue this struggle, until their 
patience and valor shall win a glorious independence 
for their country. 

Sir, flings have been made at the fidelity of Georgia. 
That grand old commonwealth needs no vindication 
from me. In the language of a great statesman, on a 
great occasion, "I shall enter on no encomium upon 
Georgia. There she is, there is her history, the world 
knows it by heart." There is her Chicamauga, Ring- 
gold, Resaca, Kennesaw, ISTew Hope, Atlanta and Jones- 
boro, and there they will remain forever. Every foot 
of her soil from her northern border to the Atlantic 
coast has trembled under the consecrating seal of a bap- 
tism in blood. Her gallant sons have mingled their 
blood with the soil they died to defend, upon every bat- 
tlefield from Gettysburg to the Rio Grande. Every 
altar liberty has erected in this struggle is red with 
Georgia's sacrificial libation. Her devotion to the im- 
perishable principles of constitutional liberty and 
inalienable right of self-government has been illustrated 
by the self-sacrificing spirit and heroic suffering of her 
soldiers in the field and her people at home. I would 
institute no invidious comparisons between the contri- 



MEN AND THINGS 299 



butions of Georgia and the other States to this revolu- 
tion, but I state a historic fact, and challenge contradic- 
tion, when I assert that she has sent more men into the 
field and paid more money into the treasury than any 
other State in the sisterhood. You could not remain 
here in security twenty-four hours if you withdrew the 
bayonets that gleam around the national capital from 
her shattered battalions. She has entwined with the 
laurel that blooms on her brow, the cypress that symbol- 
izes her sorrow. Fifty thousand of her martyred dead 
have been entered upon her roll of honor and embalmed 
in historic immortality. 

On fame's eternal camping-ground, 

Their silent tents are spread, 
And glory guards with solemn round 

The bivouacs of her dead. 

Atlantic and Great Western Canai.. 

Speech of Hon. Hiram, P. Bell, of Georgia, in the 
House of Representatives, Fehruary IJf, 187Jf. 

Mr. Speaker, the question of increased facilities for 
more and cheaper transportation is the great question 
to which the attention of Congress is now called by all 
classes and interests in every section of the Union. 
This question overshadows all others in its grandeur 
and magnitude. The public opinion of the country has 
exhausted all the forms of expression through which it 
could be heard in favor of the adoption of some means 
for its accomplishment. The press, public meetings, 



300 MEN AND THINGS 

boards of trade, chambers of commerce, conventions of 
governors, of members of Congress, of States, and of 
the nation, and official reports of congressional commit- 
tees, have all spoken the same language upon this sub- 
ject without a single note of discord. They have all 
recognized its necessity and sought its solution. The 
mineral, mechanical, agricultural, commercial and 
manufacturing interests are all vitally interested in this 
great question. The representatives of the people can 
not, dare not, postpone favorable action upon it. 

The rapid increase in the population and productions 
of the country has created the necessity for cheaper 
means of putting these productions upon a market that 
will facilitate the exchange of commodities, enhance 
the value of labor, and thus reward the toils of industry. 
Experience has demonstrated the inefficiency of rail- 
way transportation to meet the exigencies of the case; 
hence the public attention has been directed to the 
feasibility of opening waterways foT commercial com- 
munication between the gi-eat valley of the Mississippi 
and the Atlantic Ocean. Among the various lines thiit 
have interposed their claims to favorable consideration, 
and pre-eminent among them in the superiority of its 
advantages, stands the Atlantic and Great Western 
Canal. Basing its claims upon the superiority of its 
advantages, it challenges the aid which I invoke from 
the Government for its construction. 

The President, in his annual message to the second 
session of the Forty-second Congi-ess, indicates his 
readiness to recommend Government aid to such enter- 
prises as will cheapen transportation and facilitate the 



MEN AND THINGS 301 

exchange of commercial commodities, Avhenever it is 
clearly shown that they are of "national interest, and 
when completed will be of a valne commensurate with 
their cost. 

IsTow, in regard to the Atlantic and Great Western 
Canal, I undertake to demonstrate the following propo- 
sitions : 

First. That it is feasible. 

Secondly. That when completed it will be of a value 
commensurate with its cost. 

Thirdly. That it is a work of national interest. 

IT IS FEASIBLE. 

If these propositions can be established, it follows 
that it is the duty, as well as the interest, of the Govern- 
ment, to aid its construction. Is the connection of the 
Mississippi and its affluents with the Atlantic Ocean 
feasible ? Is it practicable 'i There are two infallible 
tests of truth, and but two. One is trial, experiment; 
this test is based upon the evidence of facts. The other 
infallible test is mathematical demonstration. Tried 
by both of these tests this enterprise is feasible beyond 
all doubt. 

If the question were left to the speculations of mere 
theorists, reasonable doubts of its practicability might 
be safely entertained. But this is not left to the uncer- 
tainty of conjecture. The fact is that these highways 
of trade and transit have been constructed and succesv 
fuUy operated for centuries, increasing the wealth and 
ministering to the wants of individuals, cities, and na- 
tions. They are to-day great arteries through which 



302 MEJSr AND THINGS 

commerce flows in China, Russia, the N'etherlands, 
Italy, France, Great Britain, and the United States. 
The genius of DeLesseps has but recently astonished the 
world in mingling through the Suez Canal the waters 
of the classic sea that bore Csesar and his fortunes with 
those which overwhelmed Pharaoh and his hosts; and 
thus revolutionized the commerce of the East, if not of 
the world. Without descending to particulars or refer- 
ring to details, it may be stated as a historic fact that 
the feasibility of constructing canals and the utility of 
canal navigation stand demonstrated upon the evidence 
of trial and success. 

But it may be said that this does not prove the feasi- 
bility of a particular canal — of the Atlantic and Great 
Western Canal. I reply that it unquestionably proves 
its feasibility, provided it can be shown that there are 
no physical, no engineering difficulties that render its 
construction impracticable. This question involves the 
other test of truth, mathematical demonstration. The 
proof has been furnished by the actual survey of the 
route by an able and accomplished engineer, Major 
McFarland, who reports that "there are no formidable 
engineering difficulties along the line." It had been 
supposed that the Sand Mountain presented a formid- 
able difficulty to the construction of this work, yet an 
actual survey shows it to be perfectly practicable across 
that supposed barrier. 

This engineer, in his report, says that — 
"The engineer's survey shows two practicable routes 
across it, one passing up the valley of Short Creek, the 
other up the valley of Town Creek, on either of which 



MEN AND THINGS 303 

an abundant supply of water for the service of the 
canal can be obtained during eight months of the year, 
while during the remaining four months, by resorting 
to the use of storage reservoirs, a sufficient supply may 
be obtained." 

The feasibility of this route has been ascertained by 
precisely the same means that the practicability of all 
other canal routes has been ascertained, namely, by the 
actual survey of skilled engineers. It being estab- 
lished that it can be constructed, that there are no en- 
gineering difficulties in the way, let us inquire whether, 

WHEN COMPLETED^ IT WIL"L BE OF A VALUE COMMENSU- 
EATE WITH ITS COST. 

The consideration of this proposition involves an 
examination into the cost of construction, the revenues 
it will yield when completed and the contribution it will 
make to the material wealth of the country. And here 
we enter upon no unexplored wilderness of speculation, 
or wild dream of fancy, but we are guided by the safe 
and steady light of experience. The engineer esti- 
mates the cost of opening this line of water communica- 
tion from Guntersville, on the Tennessee Eiver, to 
Brunswick, Georgia, on the Atlantic coast, suitable for 
barges carrying one hunlred and seventy tons during 
the low-water season and three hundred tons during the 
ordinary stages of water, upon a liberal basis, at 
$34,354,291, including river improvements. 

The entire cost of the Erie Canal up to the 30th of 
September, 1862, was $38,977,831.16, which, with in- 
terest up to that date, amounted to $52,491,915.74; and 



304 MEN AND THINGS 

after deducting expenses $12,518,860.03, there re- 
mained a net profit of $59,264,810,62, not only suffi- 
cient up to that time to pay the entire cost of construc- 
tion with interest but leaving a balance or surplus of 
nearly $7,000,000 for the State of its gross earnings. 
Since the 30th of September, 1862, the net earnings 
were about $20,000,000 more. Since the completion 
of this great work, less than a half century, its income 
has paid the entire cost of construction and yielded a 
net profit of $27,000,000. 

These facts furnish a safe basis for the calculation 
of the revenues which the Atlantic and Great Western 
Canal will yield when completed in the way of tolls. 
Indeed, all the advantages of cost of construction, dis- 
tance of route, climatic obstructions, etc., are in favor 
of this, and against the Erie Canal. 

The distinguished engineer, in his report referred to, 
says of this line, comparing its merits with the lake and 
canal, the James River and Kanawha, and the Missis- 
sippi routes, that — 

"It may be said for it, that it enjoys every advantage 
possessed by the others ; it is superior to them all in this, 
that it will never be obstructed by ice; will never be 
rendered impassable by drought; does not descend suf- 
ficiently low in the heated regions to have its cargoes 
injured by heat or moisture ; will require no rehandling 
of cargoes between the points of shipment and dis- 
charge; and will cost but little more than the Erie 
Canal enlarged, while its capacity will be greater, and 
no doubt it will, like the Erie Canal, pay for the orig- 
inal outlay, interest, expenses of repair and service, 



MEN AND THINGS 305 

with a large balance to its credit, in the course of thirty 
years." 

Taking St. Louis as the great center of trade in the 
valley of the Mississippi, and the point from which 
Western products start in search for the Atlantic coast 
and a foreign market, the advantages of distance in 
favor of this line are as follows: 

Miles. 
From St. Louis by lakes and Erie Canal to 'New 

York 1,950 

From jSTew York to Liverpool 3,150 



Total distance 5,100 



From St. Louis to ISTew Orleans 1,270 

From ISTew Orleans to Liverpool 4,756 



Total distance 6,026 

From St. Louis to Savannah by proposed canal . .1,508 
From Savannah to Liverpool 3,390 



Total distance 4,898 



The distance in favor of the Atlantic and Great 
Western Canal against the lake and Erie route is 210 
miles, and against the Mississippi, via I^ew Orleans, is 
1,136 miles, with a corresponding difference in favor 
of the Savannah, in the cost of transportation. Super- 
add the fact that this route is unobstructed by ice, 
while the Erie is annually obstructed for four or five 



306 MEN AND THINGS 

months; and that no damage results to cargoes from 
climatic causes, as is the case with the Mississippi route, 
and the question of advantages between these lines, 
ceases to be debatable. 

It is not my purpose, however, to disparage the claims 
of any route, but to show the superior advantages of the 
particular one whose claims to favorable consideration 
I am now urging. The necessities of the country de- 
mand the construction of e\ery line that will develop 
our domestic commerce and secure an outlet to the ocean 
for our trade abroad. 

If the Erie Canal has shown such results under these 
comparative disadvantages, what may we not safely ex- 
pect from the Atlantic and Great Western, with the 
superior advantages which it possesses. To these may 
be added the greater necessity now for transportation 
than when the Erie was constructed. It developed and 
built up the commerce upon which it has fed. "Wliile 
the subduing of the wilderness and the honest industry 
of toiling millions have crowded the great valley of th^ 
Mississippi with a vast surplus, that wastes and rots 
while thousands in the East are perishing with famine, 
whose hunger our bounty could appease if we could but 
convey it to them. But it is not only in India that 
bread is needed — the exhausted States of the ruined 
South likewise want it. 

The Committee on Commerce of the House of Kepre- 
sentatives, in the second session of the Eorty-second 
Congress, in their able report say that — 

"The census of 1870 shows that Georgia, South Caro- 
lina, Alabama and Florida produce 57,215,600 bushels 



MEN AND i H/NGS 307 

of grain. Their average consumption, according to 
data furnished by the Bureau of Statistics, is 104,521, 
470 bushels. This leaves a deficit of 47,305,870 
bushels to be supplied by other States. As the larger 
portion of this grain is needed along the seaboard, in 
what is known as the cotton belt, we may assume the 
distance from St. Louis to Savannah as the average 
distance this grain is moved. This would make the 
cost of transportation on each ton $14.40, at 1^/4 cents 
per ton per mile. The cost for the same distance by 
this canal would be $4.88. This is a saving of $9.52 
upon each ton, and an aggregate of $13,647,024.72 
upon one article in a single year; the development of a 
latent value of nearly $14,000,000, to be divided be- 
tween the producer and the consumer." 

To state the case in other words, this canal would 
save to the producers of the West and the planters of 
the South in the transportation of corn alone for one 
year nearly $14,000,000 ; and this amount alone, for 
three years, would more than pay the cost of the canal. 
This single fact, undisputed and undisputiible, demon- 
strates the value as well as the necessity of this great 
work. 

IS THIS A WORK OF NATIONAL INTEREST ? 

Unquestionably it is. The development of the produc- 
tive resources of the country, the increase of its wealth, 
and the expansion of its commerce, foreign and domes- 
tic, are all matters of national interest; and if these 
interests of the country are promoted by the construc- 
tion of this highway of trade, then it is a work of 



308 MEN AND THINGS 

national interest. Will it affect favorably the produc- 
tive resources of the country ? 

Let us examine this question a moment. 

The States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and 
Florida are adapted to the production of cotton, while 
large portions of these States are not well adapted to 
the production of grain. The average yield of corn is 
less than ten dollars per acre, while the average yield 
of cotton is about forty dollars. It is of course to the 
interest of the farmers to cultivate cotton, because it 
yields a greater profit; it pays better than grain. But 
it is cheaper to raise grain than to purchase it even at 
a nominal price in the West, because of the expense of 
transporting it. 

The Committee on Commerce, heretofore referred to, 
say that in those States — 

"The scarcity of food and the high prices demanded 
for it force more than five million acres into grain. 
This takes away from the production of cotton about 
one-half of the labor and capital of the South. These 
acres planted in cotton would add two million five hun- 
dred thousand bales to our exports, and increase the 
value of the exports $200,000,000 annually, which 
would cause the wealth of the world to flow to us in- 
stead of away from us, as it has been doing in times 
past." 

Statistics show the values of imports and exports for 
the eight months ending August 31, 1871, as follows: 
Imports $408,503,331 



MEN AND THINGS 309 

Exports 389,242,497 

Leaving against us 19,260,834 

For the same period in 1872: 

Imports $479,924,793 

Exports 391,920,267 

Leaving balance against us 88,004,526 

This balance, together with the interest on the foreign 
debt, must be paid in coin. Yet if this channel of 
trade were opened so that the planters in these four 
States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Flor- 
ida could obtain their grain supplied from the West 
cheaper than they can make them on their exhausted 
lands, they could and would put these five million acres 
now" in grain into cotton, and raise thereon two million 
five hundred thousand bales, contributing annually to 
our exports $200,000,000, which alone, in the year 
1872, would have turned the tide of foreign trade in 
our favor to the extent of $112,000,000. 

Cotton constitutes our most valuable export. The 
statistics show a most startling diminution in its pro- 
duction for the last year, which results from the neces- 
sity to diversify the crops in the cotton States. A cor- 
responding diminution in our exports and a correspond- 
ing increase in the balance of trade against us neces- 
sarily ensue. If this state of things continues long, 
with the competition in the production of cotton, the 
foreign market will be mainly supplied from the East, 
and we will make but little, if any, more than will sup- 
ply our own factories. How can this result be obviated i 



310 MEl^ AND THINGS 

It can only be done by reducing the cost of transporta- 
tion, so that these cotton States can obtain their sup- 
plies of bread and meat from the crowded granaries 
of the West at a less cost than it requires to make them. 
Then the entire labor and capital of the cotton States 
will be directed to the production of cotton. The coin 
will be kept in the country, the West will be supplied 
with a market that will compensate labor, the currents 
of commerce will be stimulated, and the productive 
energies of the country vitalized. 

The development of the resources of the country, of 
any element of wealth or power, in any State or section, 
assumes the importance and rises to the dignity of a 
national interest. The constantly multiplying wants 
of society have increased, and are increasing, the de- 
mand for two articles especially at a rate not hitherto 
known. I allude to iron and coal. 

There is on the line of this proposed canal a region 
in which iron and coal are found, unsurpassed, if 
equalled, in the extent of its quantity or the superiority 
of its quality. This belt of iron-ore and coal lies at the 
eastern base of Lookout Mountain, and extends from 
near Chattanooga to the Coosa River at Gadsden in 
Alabama, a distance of about eighty miles. The su- 
perior quality of both the ore and coal has been shown 
by practical tests and scientific analyses. Boundless 
forests and exhaustless water power are in proximity to 
these great elements of national wealth, yet they are 
almost wholly valueless, practically, for the want of 
transportation. 

The development of these interests would not an- 



MEN AND THINGS 311 

tagonize the coal and iron interests of other sections of 
the country, because the demand for them is an ever- 
increasing one. On the contrary, similarity of inter- 
ests identifies the different sections of the Union, har- 
monizes conflicting views of constitutional construction 
and administrative policy, and thus unites the differ- 
ent sections of the Union. It is a gTeat mistake to sup- 
pose that because this great country is diversified in 
climate, soil and productions, therefore the interest of 
the different sections is antagonistic. This very di- 
versity is the bond of unity. What one section has, 
another has not, and what one section does another does 
not, so that the producer, the manufacturer the mer- 
chant, and the common carrier are all mutually aal rel- 
atively dependent on each other. 

The country needs a statesmanship whose grasp com- 
prehends the interests of all, and a patriotism whose 
ardor, ignoring local prejudices, embraces the entire 
Union. 

I present another fact, showing the national impor- 
tance of this waterway. It will give an outlet to the 
Atlantic Ocean, to sixteen thousand five hundred miles 
of inland navigation, embraced in the term "Missis- 
sippi and its tributaries," and will connect with it five 
thousand miles of similar navigation, penetrating every 
portion of four States, connecting with the Atlantic, 
thus distributing at homo and pouring into the foreign 
market by the shortest and cheapest route the treasures 
of the most productive region on the globe, drained by 
twenty-one thousand, five Lr.ndrcd miles of inland 
navigation. The simple statement of these facts star- 



312 MEN AND THINGS 

ties us with the stupendous magnitude and national 
grandeur of this enterprise. 

With every element of wealth, surrounded with pro- 
fusion and burdened with excess, we are starving at 
a banquet and famishing at a fountain. 

The national debt amounts to $2,293,170,689.43, 
upon $1,712,749,200 of which we pay interest in coin. 
The revenues fail to meet current expenses on a peace 
basis. Commerce decaying; labor disorganized in the 
South, and unproductive in the West; starving f reed- 
men imploring the Government to feed them upon ra- 
tions issued from the War Department; finances de- 
ranged; factories running on half time, and thousands 
of operatives turned out of employment in the North; 
agrarian mobs and communistic associations clamoring 
for bread or blood in the cities; railroad magnates 
monopolizing the profits of industry, and money 
changers defiling the temple with a heartless idolatry 
at the shrine of mammon — this state of things must be 
changed. These evils must be corrected. If we would 
avert from the country the fearful crisis which the 
deadly conflict between capital and labor, already 
inaugurated, will precipitate upon us, we must provide 
channels for the distributions of the productions of the 
country, the expansion of its commerce, the develop- 
ment of its resources, and the reward of its labor. 

How can the means be obtained ? 

The bill now pending provides them. Its passage, 
in my judgment, will secure the completion of this work 
in a short time, and without any liability to the Gov- 
ernment except the use of its credit. 



MEN AND THINGS 313 

The bill provides that upon the completion of each 
section of ten miles, to be certified by an engineer under 
the direction of the War Department and approved by 
the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Treasury is 
required to indorse said certificate upon the bonds of 
the company, not to exceed $80,000 per mile, the bonds 
to constitute a first mortgage upon the canal and all the 
property of the company. The bonds may be depos- 
ited with the Comptroller of the Currency, who shall 
thereupon issue to the company currency notes, not to 
exceed in amount the bonds deposited. As soon as the 
work is completed the company shall pay into the 
Treasury annually not less than 6 per cent, of the whole 
amoimt of the currency so issued for the redemption of 
said currency ; and as the notes are redeemed the bonds 
shall be canceled. If the company fail to pay the 6 
per cent, annually within thirty days after it becomes 
due, the Secretary of the Treasury may take possession 
of it and apply its earnings to the redemption of the 
currency. 

This scheme will secure the means to open this line. 
It involves no danger to the Government; no taxes are 
to be imposed ; no money to be borrowed, and no risks 
incurred. 

The notes are not to be issued until ten miles of the 
work or line is completed, and upon that, and each con- 
secutive ten miles, the certified bonds of the company 
will constitute a mortgage. The Government will be 
amply secured. It will pay no interest, and the com- 
pany will pay no interest. The annual payment of the 
6 per cent, will redeem the currency in sixteen years; 



314 MEN A77D T II I N G i^ 

and if the company fail to pay it within thirty days 
after it becomes due the Government may take charge 
of it and apply its income to the redemption of the 
notes. 

These notes would be distributed among the laboring 
class, men of small means, who greatly need it; and in 
a section where the circulation does not exceed two dol- 
lars pe?' capita, and where the people are clamorous for 
an increase of currency. It would be placed beyond 
the control of bank and railroad monopolists ; and thus 
open this great national highway of trade, and at the 
same time supply the people in the South and West, 
where they most need it, with money. 

The necessity for the means of exchanging commer- 
cial commodities without absorbing the profits of labor, 
and a desire for relief from the dominion of extortion- 
ers and the monopoly of corporations, have united the 
honest, toiling masses of the country in the demand for 
legislative interposition. Nor will they cease until this 
demand meets with a response from their representa- 
tives. If we fail to respond they will fill our places 
with those who will. Already hundreds of thousands 
of patriotic men have sundered the ligaments that bind 
them to party, and united upon this question ; and their 
voice comes up to this Capitol, like the roar of gather- 
ing waters, demanding a market unburdened by monop- 
oly and extortion for the products of their labor. 

These hardy farmers of the South and the great West 
demand something more than the repeal of the salary 
bill. They are for economy ; but it is not that sort of 
economy that keeps up the expenses of thirty custom 



MEN AND THINGS 315 

houses that yield no revenues to the Government; that 
sort of economy that expends annually millions of the 
public money in paving the streets and beautifying the 
grounds of this magnificent city while their homes are 
covered with mortgages. They w^ant that sort of econ- 
omy that equalizes the burdens and benefactions of the 
Government; that distributes its productions, husbands 
its resources, and develops its wealth. 

Argument of Hon. H. P. Bell, of Georgia, Before the 
Senate Committee on Revolutionary Claims, April 
27, 1874, on the Bill to Refund to the State of 
Georgia the Sum of Thirty-five Thousand, Five 
Hundred and Fifty-five Dollars and Forty-two 
Cents, Expended by said State, for the Common 
Defense in 1777. 

Mr. Bell said: 
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee: 

The bill under consideration provides that the Fed- 
eral Government shall refund to the State of Georgia 
the sum of thirty-five thousand, five hundred and fifty- 
five dollars and forty-two cents, which amount the State 
expended for the connnon cause of independence in the 
Revolutionary struggle in 1777. This debt was in- 
curred for supplies purchased by the agents of the State 
from Robert Farquhar, a merchant of Charleston, South 
Carolina, for the troops, at Savannah, under the com- 
mand of General James Jackson. These troops were 
engaged in the common struggle for independence, and 
utterly destitute of clothing. The debt was contracted 



316 MEN AND THINGS 

for clothing. After the settlement of the accounts of 
Georgia with the general government, this account was 
audited by the auditing officers of the State and certifi- 
cates of indebtedness issued for the sum of five thou- 
sand pounds sterling. Peter Trezvant married the 
daughter, and only child of Eobert Farquhar, and by 
virtue of his marital rights became the heir-at-law of 
Robert Farquhar, and the legal owner of these certifi- 
cates of indebtedness against the State. In 1838, while 
a resident of Great Britain, he memorialized the Legis- 
lature of the State, praying the payment of these certifi- 
cates. The Legislature adopted the following preamble 
and resolution upon this subject, to wit: 

"Whereas, several claims upon the State have been 
presented to the present session of the legislature, which 
claims have been dormant for many years ; and wliereas 
the policy of the State, as declared by the acts of piidt 
legislatures (which run nearly contemporaneous with 
their creation), has prevented the authorities thereof 
from discharging and paying the same; and inasmuch 
as it is impossible that the legislature can, through any 
of its committees, investigate the same during its ses- 
sion; and, public justice never requiring the refusal of 
a just debt nor the payment of one of such antiquated 
existence, without a due investigation of the same, to 
the end that justice may be done the claimants and the 
State — 

"Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives in General Assembly met, That his Excel- 
lency the Governor, appoint three fit and proper persons 
to investigate fully the claims of Peter Trezvant, R. M. 



MEN AND THINGS 317 



D. J. Elliott and Milledge Gaulphin, in behalf of him- 
self and others, and that said persons report to the next 
session of the Legislature the entire facts connected with 
the same, the Uahiliiy of the State to pay them or any 
part of them, and whether interest is allowable upon 
the same, together with such facts, if any exist, show- 
ing the discharge of the State from such liahility, an^i 
all other facts connected with each of said claims as 
shall he useful in determining their validity." (Acts 
of 1838, page 276.) 

Under this resolution, Joseph H. Lumpkin, William 
Law and David C. Campbell were appointed to dis- 
charge the duties which it imposed — gentlemen dis- 
tinguished for their talents, their learning, and their 
virtues. They were charged with the duty of "report- 
ing to the next session of the Legislaure the entire facts 
connected with the same, the liability of the State co 
pay the claim, or any part of the same, and whether in- 
terest was allowable upon the same, together with such 
facts, if any exist, showing the discharge of the State 
from liability, and all other facts connected with each 
of said claims as shall be useful in determining their 
validity." 

It will be perceived that every question of law and 
fact involving the validity of this claim, and the liabil- 
ity of the State to pay it, was submitted to this com- 
mission. After a most searching, thorough and able 
investigation of the justice of the claim, the considera- 
tion upon which it was based, and the question as to 
whether it was barred by lapse of time, and at a time 
when the popular judgment and prejudice were op- 



318 MEN AND THIN3S 

posed to the payment, they unanimously reported in 
favor of the justice of the claim and the obligation of 
the State to pay it. In their very elaborate report they 
say (I quote from the original manuscript report now 
before me), "we have, as we conceive, fully established 
that the certificates were rightfully issued — that they 
are genuine, and that they have never been paid." 

Again: "The reasons which have now been assigned 
have brought us to the conclusion that the State is bound 
by every principle of honor and justice to redeem the 
certificates held by Mr. Trezvant." 

I^otwithstanding the thorough examination of the 
facts and legal questions involved, and the decided con- 
viction and judgment in favor of the justice of this 
claim, and the obligation resting on the State to pay it, 
the Legislature hesitated for years, before making pro- 
vision for its payment. Finally, pressed with the irre- 
sistible conviction of its justice, the Legislature, in 
1847, passed an act, which was approved December 25 
of that year, providing for the payment of the sum jf 
twenty-two thousand two hundred and twenty-two dol- 
lars and twenty-two cents, being the original principal 
of the debt of five thousand pounds reduced to Federal 
money. And for this sum, the State issued her bonds 
bearing date on the first day of January, 1848, at six 
per cent, interest per annum. Those bonds were paid 
at maturity on the first of January, 1858, the principal 
and interest amounting to the sum of thirty-five thou- 
sand five hundred and fifty-five dollars and forty-two 
cents, wTiich amount this bill provides the General Gov- 
ernment shall refund to the State of Georgia. 



MEN AND THINGS 319 

The State presented her memorial to the Thirty-sixth 
Congress, praying the passage of an act refunding this 
amount to her. This memorial was referred in the 
Senate, to the Committee on Kevolutionary Claims. 
After a careful examination of the claim the commit- 
tee was unanimously of the opinion that the claim was 
just and ought to be paid, and unanimously reported 
a bill for that purpose. The bill was not reached on 
the calendar, and thus failed. 

See Senate Report, No. 94, first session Thirty-sixth 
Congress. 

See Senate Bill No. 231, first session Thirty-sixth 
Congress. 

Senate Bills and Resolutions, Part 1 to 258. 

The existence and justice of this claim, the consid- 
eration upon which it was based, the obligation of the 
State to pay it, and the payment by the State are all 
abundantly established by the report of the commis- 
sioners appointed by the Legislature to examine it, by 
the act of the Legislature providing for its payment, and 
by the report of the committee of the Senate, in 18G0, 
to which reference has already been made. 

Unquestionably the State of Georgia expended this 
sum in prosecuting the common struggle for independ- 
ence in 1Y77. She now asks that it be paid back to her, 
as like indebtedness or expenditures of other States, all 
for the same purpose and in the common cause, have 
been repaid to them. This claim was not presented by 
the State, and, therefore, not allowed in the adjustment 
of the accounts between the Federal Government and 
the State, under the assumption act of 1790, because its 



320 MEN AND THINGS 

justness was not admitted by the State at the time of 
the settlement. But after the settlement, in 1794, this 
claim was audited by the auditing officers of the State, 
the amount due ascertained, and certificates of indebt- 
edness issued. It is supposed that the non-residence of 
Mr. Trezvant accounts for the delay in presenting it for 
payment. When presented, no means could be found 
to avoid the payment, except the repudiation of a just 
debt, which involved a violation of faith and a sacrifice 
of honor, for which the State was not prepared, and of 
which her patriotic people were incapable. 

Shall the Federal Government reimburse the State ? 

Congress passed an act, which was approved August 
5, 1790, by which the Federal Government assumed, 
and provided for the payment of all the debts of the 
several colonies, or States, incurred by them in the 
prosecution of the common cause, and appointed a com- 
mission to adjust the matters of account between the 
General Government and the several States, growing out 
of expenditures made in support of the war prosecuted 
by the colonies against Great Britain for the establish- 
ment and maintenance of our independence. Under 
this law the accounts were settled, the States being 
charged with the amounts advanced to them by the 
Colonial Congress, and credited with the amounts sev- 
erally and respectively expended by them. It is be- 
lieved that all the claims which the States, or any of 
them, held against the Government, so far as their ex- 
istence was known and their validity recognized, were 
adjusted. The validity of this debt was not admitted, 
if its existence was known, until after the settlement 



MEN AND THINGS 321 

between the States and the United States. Indeed, the 
validity of this claim against the State was never fully 
recognized by the State until the passage of the .lot pro- 
viding for its payment, approved December 25, 1847. 

Certainly the State would not have been justified in 
presenting to the Federal Government, for payment a 
claim, the justice and validity of which she did not ad- 
mit ; and the fact that the claim was either imknown, or 
disputed was a sufiicient reason why it was not or should 
not have been presented for payment, by the State, in 
her settlement with the Government of the United 
States. 

The act of Congress of August 5, 1790, established 
and settled the policy of the Government in the assump- 
tion of the debts incurred by the several States on ac- 
count of the common cause of independence. It has 
been the policy of Congress to provide for the payment 
of such debts, where they existed, as were not included 
in the settlement between the several States and the 
general Government. I refer to an instance illustra- 
ting the truth of this proposition. A short time before 
the close of the Revolutionary War, the State of Vir- 
ginia enlisted a nmnber of troops to serve during the 
war with the express stipulation that if they served out 
the term of their enlistment they were to receive full 
pay, and if they were not called into service, they should 
receive half pay. The surrender at Yorktown closed 
the war before these troops w^ere called into the service. 
The officers and privates claimed, under the stipulation, 
their half pay. Virginia declined to pay, on the 
ground that no sorvico bnd been ronderr'd. Tin*? claim 



322 MEN AND THINGS 

was in existence at the timo the accounts of Virginia 
with the General Government were settled. They were 
not included in the settlement. Afterwards Virginia 
opened her courts and allowed the claimants to test the 
validity of their demand. Suits were instituted and 
judgments were rendered in favor of the claimant'? 
against the State. 

Congress passed an act in 1848, which provided for 
the repayment to Virginia of the sums thus recovered. 
This provision is contained in an appropriation act, and 
is in the following words : "For repayment to Virginia 
of money paid by that State, under judgment of her 
courts against her, to Revolutionary officers and soldiers 
and their representatives, for half pay and commutation 
of half pay, a sum not exceeding eighty-one thousand, 
one hundred and seventy-three dollars and seventeen 
cents, provided, however, that the agent of said State 
shall deposit authenticated copies of the acts or judg- 
ments under which the money was paid by the State 
of Virginia." 

Georgia, like Virginia, denied her liability to pa^^ 
this claim. Virginia opened her courts to the claim- 
ants against her, who instituted suits, and recovered 
judgments. Georgia referred the claim against her to 
commissioners, whose investigation and report estab- 
lished the justice of this claim, and her Legislature 
passed an act providing for its payment. Virginia 
paid the claim against her, and Congress pased an act 
to repay the amount to Virginia. Georgia paid the 
claim against her, and asks Congress to repay — to do 
that justice to her which was done to Virginia. If it 



MEN AND THINGS 323 

was the duty of the General Government to pay Vir- 
ginia, why is not also the duty of the Government to 
pay Georgia ? The debts were contracted by the States 
in both cases for the same purpose — the public defense. 
In the case of Virginia the debt was paid for service 
which was never rendered. In the case of Georgia the 
debt was contracted and paid by the State for cloth- 
ing, for her troops while actually engaged in the serv- 
ice. There can, therefore, be no question of the justice 
of this claim or the liability of the Federal Government 
to pay it. 

Louisiana. 

Speech of Hon. Hiram P. Bell, of Georgia, in the 
House of Representatives, February 10, 1875. 

The House being in Committee of the Whole on the 
President's annual message. 

Mr. Bell said : 

Mr, Speaker, the people of this country were startled 
at the announcement of the events that transpired on 
the 4th day of January, 1875, at the capital of the 
State of Louisiana, On that day, at that place, in 
a time of peace, the soldiers of the United States Army, 
with fixed bayonets, entered the capitol of the sover- 
eign State of Louisiana and broke up and dispersed 
by armed force the representative branch of her Gen- 
eral Assembly. This outrageous act of tyranny and 
military despotism was committed upon the order of 
the person who claimed to be the governor of the State, 



324 ME2i AND THINGS 

and Avas approved by the President of the United States 
and his Cabinet ministers. 

The sole pretext for this high-handed usurpation was 
that in the opinion of William Pitt Kellogg, the House 
of Representatives was an illegal assembly. The mem- 
bers were chosen by the electors of Louisiana at the 
time and place and in the manner prescribed by law. 
The House of Representatives had assembled at the time 
and place fixed by law for the meeting of the Legisla- 
ture under a written constitution, which provides, 
among other things, that — each House of the General 
Assembly shall judge of the qualification, election, and 
return of its members. 

The returning board failed to pass upon the election 
of five persons claiming to have been chosen, and ex- 
pressly referred the question of their election to the 
House of Representatives. The House, in the exercise 
of a plain, constitutional right, adjudged that they were 
entitled to seats, and adopted a resolution seating them 
as members, subject of course to any contest that might 
be filed. And ihi^ is the ground of alleged illegality 
upon which Kellogg based his order or request to the 
military to dispose of the House. What law made Kel- 
logg the judge of the qualification, election, and re- 
turn of the members of the House of Representatives? 
The constitution of Louisiana made the House itself the 
judge of that question ; and the assumption on the part 
of Kellogg to determine the question of who were or 
who were not qualified, elected, and returned as mem- 
bers was a plain and palpable violation of the Constitu- 
tion which he had sworn to support. Claiming to be 



MEN AND THINGS 325 

the chief magistrate of a great State, the guardian of 
her rights and the defender of her Constitution, he 
tramples that Constitution into the dust at the expense 
of his official oath, and sacrifices the rights and liber- 
ties of the people to personal aggrandizement and party 
supremacy, and thus embalms himself in historic in- 
famy as a usurper and a tyrant. There are none so 
stupid as not to know that Kellogg invoked the arm 
of military power to disperse the House of Representa- 
tives, not because it was illegal, not because the five 
members were improperly admitted, but because a 
majority of the members were not in political sympa- 
thy with him and the party with which he is allied, and 
of which he is the fit representative and exponent in 
the South. The incipient step, therefore, in all this 
trouble on the 4th of January was a usurpation. The 
whole difficulty arose from the claim of that burlesque, 
upon the idea of a governor to judge of the qualifica- 
tion, election, and return of the members of the House 
of Representatives, a right which the Constitution se- 
cured to the House itself, and a right about which there 
could not possibly be any doubt. 

The American people begin to understand, and his- 
tory will faithfully record, the extent to which the ir- 
repressible carpet-bagger has exhausted Southern pa- 
tience and fatigued Southern indignation. And by 
whom was this judgment of illegality pronounced ? By 
a man who held the office of governor by virtue of an 
order issued ex parte at the dark hour of midnight by a 
judge who resigned to avoid impeachment by his own 
party, for granting that order, upon the gTOund that !ie 



326 MEN AND THINGS 

had no jurisdiction in the matter. If Durell had no 
right to grant the order, for the want of jurisdiction, 
that practically kept Kellogg in office, then the judg- 
ment was a nullity and Kellogg took nothing by it. If 
Kellogg held the oflSce by virtue of a popular election, 
and in accordance with the popular will, why was it 
necessary for a corrupt judge to draggle the judicial 
ermine in the mire of party politics to sustain him ? 

The next step in this drama of usurpation and out- 
rage was the invasion and dispersion of the House of 
Representatives by armed Federal soldiers, supplied by 
the Federal Government upon the application of Kel- 
logg. The ground upon which this interference is 
based is not that there was an invasion of Louisiana, 
not that domestic violence existed, but that in his opin- 
ion the House of Representatives was an illegal assem- 
bly. And the Federal authorities coincided in judg- 
ment with Kellogg and granted his request, dispersed 
the representatives chosen by the people according to 
the Constitution and laws of Louisiana, and installed in 
power those whom the people had rejected but whom 
the returning board, by the most stupendous fraud, de- 
clared to have been elected. But concede that it was 
an illegal assembly ; concede that the five men sworn in 
as members under the resolution of the House were im- 
properly, were illegally admitted ; what law constituted 
either Kellogg or the armed military the judge of the 
qualification, election, and return of these members ? 
What constitution authorized them, or what law, State 
or Federal, authorized them to break up and destroy 
one branch of the General Assembly of a State of the 



MEN AND THINGS 327 

American Union? Whether the House of Representa- 
tives was an illegal assembly or not is not the question. 
But the question is, by virtue of what authority the 
Federal Government took it upon itself to judge of the 
legality of the assembly, and by virtue of what authority 
of law the Federal Government enforced with the re- 
lentless arm of military power the judgment which it 
pronounced adverse to its legality. These are the ques- 
tions which the law-abiding and liberty-loving people 
of the United States, in a thousand forms and through 
a thousand instrumentalities, are pressing with the 
earnestness of alarm upon the Chief Magistrate and his 
constitutional advisers. Failing to show the authority 
demanded, the act stands a naked usurpation. 

Is there no cause for alarm when the Chief Magis- 
trate of the Republic, clothed by law with vast power 
and patronage, the chief of a powerful party, distin- 
guished for military prowess and achievements, de- 
stroys by the fiat of power the Legislature of a State 
and strikes do^Ti at one blow the constitutional liberty 
of the people? 

The question still recurs, by what authority of law 
can this interference be justified? Section 4 of article 
4 of the Constitution is invoked in vain for this pur- 
pose. It provides : That the United States shall guar- 
antee to every State in this Union a Republican form 
of government, and shall protect each of them against 
invasion, and on application of the Legislature, or of 
the executive,when the Legislature can not be con\'cned 
against domestic violence. 



328 ME:ti AND THINGS 

This section neither binds nor authorizes the Presi- 
dent of the United States to guarantee to each State a 
Eepublican form of government. The usurpation of 
this power by a Republican President was one of the 
grounds of impeachment alleged against him by a Tie- 
publican House of Representatives. 

In the case of Luther vs. Bonlen Chief Justice 
Taney said : It rests with Congi'ess to decide what gov- 
ernment is the established one in a State; for t,s the 
United States guarantees to each State a Republican 
form of government, Congress must necessarily decide 
what government is established in the State before it 
can determine whether it is Republican or not, and when 
the Senators and Representatives are admitted into the 
councils of the Union, the authority of the government 
imder which they are appointed, as well as its Republi- 
can character, is recognized by the proper constitutional 
authority, and its decision is binding on every other 
•department of the government, and could not be ques- 
tioned in a judicial tribunal. 

But no question is made upon the form of the gov- 
ernment of Louisiana. All concede that her govern- 
ment was Republican in form. If the question were in- 
volved. Congress and not the President would be the 
judge. Does the provision of the section under con- 
sideration, which guarantees to each State protection 
against invasion and domestic violence, justify the dis- 
persion of the House of Representatives by the armed 
military? Unquestionably not, because there was tio 
invasion and no domestic violence, and for the addi- 
tional reason that the Legislature must make the call. 



MEN AND THINGS 329 

if it can be convened. The Legislature was convened, 
and did not make the application for the interposition 
of the military. The state of facts upon which alone 
the governor was authorized to call for Federal assist- 
ance did not exist. This call for Federal troops was 
made by Kellogg when the Legislature could have been 
convened, ^vhen it was actually convened, and for that 
reason Kellogg had no constitutional right to make it, 
nor any other power except the Legislature. The appli- 
cation of Kellogg was itself a violation of the Consti- 
tution. It was the exercise of a power which depended 
upon the happening of a contingency, when the contin- 
gency upon which the right attacked had not happened. 

Again, domestic violence did not exist in ISTew Or- 
leans at the time. If it is said that white men were 
armed, or that white-leaguers were armed, the reply 
is that the Constitution protects white men and white- 
leaguers in the right to keep and bear arms. And the 
truth is that they were compelled to bear them in jSTew 
Orleans to prevent the armed police from stealing them. 

The exercise of a constitutional right by the people 
of Louisiana, or any other State, can not justify the 
dispersion and destruction of the House of Representa- 
tives by armed power. 

The American people thoroughly understand the rea- 
son why Kellogg appealed to force, and the alacrity with 
which the force was supplied, and the vigor and prompt- 
ness with which it was used. It was not to protect the 
State against domestic violence, because domestic vio- 
lence did not exist, in the sense in which that term is 
used in the Constitution. The expulsion of a legal, and 



330 MEN AND THINGS 

the induction of a fraudulent House of Representatives 
was not protection against domestic violence. The plea 
of domestic violence is a pretext, a sham. The aid of 
the Federal arm was invoked to dissolve the House of 
Representatives because that house was adverse to Kel- 
logg in political sentiments and party affiliation. It 
was invoked to maintain a government that did not 
derive its powers from the consent of the governed. It 
was invoked to maintain a usurpation, in defiance of 
the popular will, originating in fraud and upheld by the 
midnight order in chancery of a judge driven to resign 
by an impending impeachment, and a government that 
is still maintained by the unconstitutional interference 
of armed Federal power. 

I have characterized Kellog as a pretended governor, 
and I have the very highest official authority for insist- 
ing that he is not and never was the rightful governor 
of Louisiana. The President of the United States, in 
his special message to the Senate upon the question of 
Kellogg's election, says: 

"It has been bitterly and persistently alleged that 
Kellogg was not elected. Whether he was or not is not 
altogether certain, nor is it any more certain that his 
competitor, McEnery, was chosen. The election was a 
gigantic fraud, and there are no reliable returns of the 
result." 

The President's recognition of Kellogg as the gov- 
ernor is not based upon the fact of his election, for the 
election under which he claims to have been chosen is 
pronounced to be a gigantic fraud. And it is expressly 



MEN AND THIN OS 331 

declared that there are no reliable returns of the result 
of that election. 

From these two facts it would seem to be impossible 
that Kellogg should be the governor. If the election 
was a gigantic fraud, then nobody was elected. Fraud 
vitiates elections as well as contracts. No person ever 
did or ever can rightfully exercise the functions of an 
elective office when the election itself is a gigantic 
fraud. The President says that "there were no reliable 
returns of the result." Then there is no evidence of 
his election ; because the only legal evidence of his elec- 
tion is reliable returns of the result, and that evidence 
the President declares does not exist. The presidential 
recognition is based upon the ground that "Kellog ob- 
tains possession of the office, and in his opinion had 
more right to it than McEnery." But how did Kellogg 
obtain possession of the office? By reliable returns of 
the result of the election, the only way in which he 
could rightfully obtain it? Not at all; but virtually 
and practically by the midnight- ex parte order of a 
Federal judge, who was compelled to resign to avoid 
impeachment by a Republican House because he granted 
that illegal order in the exercise of a usurped jurisdic- 
tion. And this is the governor who appealed to bay- 
onets to determine a question that the Constitution of 
Louisiana declares the House of Eepresentatives shall 
decide ! 

The Constitution of a sovereign State of this Union 
has been trampled into the dust in the capital of that 
State beneath the ruthless tread of an armed soldiery, 
and the patriotic citizens of the Republic, East, West, 



332 MEN AND THINGS 

ISTorth and South, in alarm demand to know by what 
authority of law the deed was done, and with united 
voice and earnest hearts they press the question. The 
leaders of the Republican party have shrewdly at- 
tempted to divert the public attention from this thril- 
ling inquiry by the oft-repeated and threadbare cry of 
outrages, proscription, murder, and insecurity of life 
and property in the South. Is this a manly meeting 
of the issue ? Do they suppose that the American peo- 
ple will accept this old story, repeated a thousand times 
and as often refuted, as a justification of this wrong 
done to Louisiana ? Crimes always have been and al- 
ways will be perpetrated by all classes in every form 
of government and in every type of civilization. Law- 
lessness, crime, and bloodshed exist to a greater or less 
extent in every State in the Union. This is to be de- 
plored ; it can not be prevented ; it can only be punished. 
If crimes are not punished in the States of Louisiana 
and Mississippi, who are to blame for it ? The Repub- 
lican party has had control of these State governments 
in all their departments, executive, legislative and judi- 
cial, ever since they were reconstructed ; whether right- 
fully or by usurpation, they have had control. Why 
has crime not been punished ? Why is the judicial 
arm of those States under the domination of the colored 
Republican officials? Why does it riot afford protec- 
tion? The admission that crime can not be punished 
is a confession that the Republican party is incapable 
of governing in those States at least. In every State 
under Democratic rule and government in the South, 
crime is punished, rights are protected, law enforced, 



MEN AND THINGS 333 

and peace and order assured. This difference does not 
arise from a difference in the people to be governed, but 
from the difference in the capabilities and methods of 
those who govern. 

Everybody knows that the lamentable state of affairs 
in Louisiana has resulted from the efforts made to se- 
cure power and plunder by the miserable rival factions 
of the Republican party, headed respectively by War- 
moth and Kellogg. Yet this wretched abortion of a 
State government, brought into being at the dark hour 
of midnight by the order in chancery of a judge then 
drunk and since abhorred, confessedly unable to pro- 
tect life or punish crime, is the government which Fed- 
eral soldiers overthrew the Constitution of Louisiana to 
perpetuate over a people that have the right to be free. 
AVhat agency- General Sheridan had in this affair does 
not appear. The President informs us that he — 

"Requested him to go to Louisiana to observe and 
report the situation there, and if in his opinion neces- 
sary, to assume the command ; which he did on the 4th 
instant, after the legislative disturbance had occurred, 
at nine o'clock p. m., a number of hours after the dis- 
turbance." 

Whether he was sent down with the view of hurting 
somebody we are left to conjecture. It is clear he was 
on the ground at the time, and deemed it necessary to 
assume command and "report." He reports as follows : 
"W. W. Belkxap, 

"Secretary of War, Washington, D. C. 

"I think that the terrorism now existing in Louisiana, 
Mississippi and Arkansas could be entirely removed and 



334 MEN AND THINGS 

confidence and fair dealing established by the arrest 
and trial of the ringleaders of the armed White League. 
If Congress would pass a bill declaring them banditti, 
they could be tried by a military commission. The 
ringleaders of this banditti, who murdered men here on 
the 14th of last September, and also more recently at 
Vicksburg, Mississippi, should, in justice to law and 
order and the peace and prosperity of this South era 
part of the country, be punished. It is possible that if 
the President would issue a proclamation declaring 
them banditti no furthei action need be taken except 
that which would devolve upon me. 
"P. H. Sheridan, 
"Lieutenant-General United States Army." 

To which report the Secretary of War replied : 

"Your telegrams all received. The President and 
all of us have full confidence and thoroughly approve 
your course." 

The simple proposition in this suggestion is that Con- 
gi*ess suspend the writ of habeas corpus in Louisiana, 
Mississippi and Arkansas, and turn the destinies, rights, 
liberties and life of the citizens of these States, in a 
time of peace, over to the tender mercies of a military 
commission appointed by General Sheridan. Blit re- 
flecting that Congress might not see it in that light, and 
might still have some little regard for the Constitution 
and the liberties of the people, he recommends a shorter 
and more summary method of disposing of the white 
citizens of three States : 

"Let the President issue a proclamation declaring 



MEN AN D T H ING8 335 

them banditti, and no further action need be taken ex- 
cept that which would devolve upon me." 

That would settle the question truly. That would 
put a quietus to strife; that would protect law and sup- 
press terrorism ; that would give peace to these States ; 
the peace that Hastings gave to Hindostan; the peace 
that Austria gave to Hungary; the peace that Kussia 
gave to Poland — the peace of death. Yet this advice is 
given by the second officer in rank in the United States 
Army, coolly, deliberately, in a time of peace, to the 
Eepublican President of the United States, and the 
lightning flashes back the presidential expression of con- 
fidence and approval. And all this under a Govern- 
ment whose written Constitution declares that the privi- 
lege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended 
unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public 
safety may require. 

Mr. Speaker, it is singular that so much horror is 
manifested at the White Leagues of the South and none 
against the black leagues. It is notorious that almost 
the entire body of colored voters in the South are mem- 
bers of oath-bound leagues, meetings in darkness, and 
many of them armed and incited to the most deadly hos- 
tility to white men by bad men of the Republican party 
for selfish partisan ends. But no words of complaint 
or rebuke escapes Republican lips, no Republican press 
teems with denunciation of them, and no arm of Federal 
power is bared for their suppression. 

The midnight heavens blush in redness with the 
flamess of burning dwellings and gin-houses in South 
Carolina, and the lieutenant-general of the army advises 



336 MEN AND THINGS 

no suspension of tlie writ of habeas corpus that he may 
summarily try the incendiary and punish the arson. 
Why is this ? Is it because the turpitude of crime con- 
sists in the color of the perpetrator ; or is it because it is 
done by those who maintain a negro despotism over the 
people of that suffering State? Why is there no con- 
demnation of the black leaguers in the South ? Is it 
because they were organized by adventurers in the in- 
terest of the Republican party that they are not con- 
demned ? 

Why are not the armed organizations and hostile 
demonstrations of the negroes in the South denounced? 
It was this state of affairs that created the necessity for 
White League organizations. It is because the negroes 
have been armed and incited to hostility to the whites 
by Republicans to secure power and plunder in defiance 
of the popular will. This denunciation of the White 
Leagues, this cry of lawlessness and insecurity of life 
and property is raised to evade the issue and divert the 
public attention from the true, the vital question in- 
volved. That question is by virtue of what authority 
of law the armed soldiers of the United States dispersed 
the House of Representatives of the State of Louisiana. 
It is no answer to this question to say that lawlessness, 
violence and intimidation exist in Louisiana. This is 
the answer of the lieutenant-general of the army. 
Three bishops of different branches of the Christian 
church, and the pastor of the synagogue caveat the truth 
of the allegation in these words : 

"We, the undersigned, believe it our duty to pro- 
claim to the whole American people that these charges 



MEN AND THINGS 337 

are unmerited, unfounded and erroneous, and can have 
no other effect than that of serving the interest of cor- 
rupt politicians who are at this moment using the most 
extreme efforts to perpetuate their power over the State 
of Louisiana." 

I do not care to discuss the issue of fact thus joined. 
But I will be allowed to state that the very able report 
of the committee of this House, a majority of whom are 
distinguished Republicans, explicitly and unequivocally 
sustains the bishops and contradicts the general. But 
admit that disorders exist in Louisiana; who is respon- 
sible for them ? If crime is unpunished ; if life and 
property are insecure; if business is deranged and 
ruined ; if property is depreciated in value ; if taxation 
amounts to confiscation, in the language of your com- 
mittee, and if the people are discontented, who is re- 
sponsible for it all ? This deplorable state of affairs is 
the legitimate result of the misrule of rival Republican 
factions utterly unworthy of public confidence and 
wholly incapable of securing the objects for which gov- 
ernment was instituted. And it was to sustain those 
in power, thus unworthy, thus incapable, and of whose 
election there were no reliable returns, that the Federal 
soldiers broke up the House of Representatives. 

It is the duty of the State government to punish 
crime, to enforce law, and to protect right. And that 
government that fails in these objects, fails to execute 
the high trusts with which government is invested for 
the public good. In the State of Georgia, under Repub- 
lican rule, crime was not punished; but it is due to the 
courts of that State to sav that it was no fault of theirs. 



338 MEN AND THINGS 

A Republican governor, himself a fugitive from justico, 
pardoned the most outrageous cases of murder, both 
before and after conviction, and in many cases after 
convictions had been affirmed by the Supreme Court. 
The corruption of the executive palsied the arm of the 
judiciary, and the criminal went free. 

It is true, and the people of this country know that 
it is true, that crime is punished, right protected, and 
order maintained in every Southern State in which the 
Democracy is in authority. Why? Because Demo- 
crats have been placed in power by the popular will. 
The people govern themselves. If disorder exists in 
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas, they were pro- 
duced by the struggle for power by rival Republican 
factions in Louisiana and Arkansas, and by a carpet- 
bag, negro government in Mississippi that was incapable 
of discharging the functions of government. 

I can not relieve my mind from the conviction that 
there is "method in all this madness." I think that 
Kellog disclosed the secret, when, in his communication 
to the President at Long Branch of August the 19th 
he despondingly says that Louisiana is now the last 
State in the southwest, except Mississippi, that remains 
true to the Republican party. It would seem, then, 
that the supremacy of the Republican party after all 
was the great question. If Louisiana remains true to 
the Republican party, why is not the Republican party 
able to govern Louisiana ? 

A distinguished leader in that party in high official 
power says, speaking of the Southern people : 



MEN AND THINGS 339 

"What they want is to be let alone, and then they will 
take possession of Louisiana, and they will take posses- 
sion of Mississippi in the same way, and they will take 
possession of Florida in the same- way, and they will 
take possession of South Carolina in the same way, and 
thus they intend to secure a solid Democratic South." 

Can it be possible ! Is it credible that peace, quiet, 
law, and order in these States are to be sacrificed to 
party supremacy ; and still who doubts it ? 

It is boldly proclaimed by one of the first men in 
ability and position in the Republican party that if the 
white people of the South are let alone it will secure a 
solid Democratic South, And that is literally true. 
If let alone by the Federal Government, if left to exer- 
cise the constitutional right of local self-government, 
there would soon be a solid Democratic South. This 
is the reason why the Federal soldiers did not let Louis- 
iana alone. When let alone, the people are opposed to 
usurpation; when let alone, they are in favor of the 
subordination of the military to the civil authority; 
when let alone, they are capable of punishing crime, 
of preserving peace, and of enforcing law. 

The trouble with Louisiana has been that she was 
not let alone. 

Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indi- 
ana, and other States were let alone, and they recently 
went solidly Democratic. And leave the South alone, 
and every State will soon be solidly Democratic. This 
is the reason why the armed soldiery of the United 
States did not let the House of Representatives of Louis- 



340 MEN AND THINGS 

iana alone. It was, if let alone, Democratic. It may- 
soon become necessary to apply the method adopted in 
Louisiana to Massachusetts and ]^ew York. It is a 
very effective way to convert Democratic States into 
military despotisms. But just now a universal demand 
comes up from the people to be let alone. They are 
honest, they are capable, they are patriotic, and when 
let alone they will maintain public liberty, they will 
preserve free institutions, and will transmit unimpaired 
to posterity the blood-bought heritage of constitutional 
government. The complaint they make is that they are 
not let alone; that the armed soldiers of the United 
States determined a question by force which under the 
Constitution the House of Representatives alone had the 
right to determine. Our fathers intended that they 
should be let alone in the exercise of those rights which 
were not expressly delegated to the Federal Govern- 
ment; hence they said in article 9 of amendments to 
the Constitution that — 

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain 
rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others 
retained by the people. 

And in article 10 of the same amendment that — 

The powers not delegated to the United States by the 
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are 
reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. 

The people of this country have the right to be let 
alone in the exercise of all the rights and powers which 
were not surrendered by them in the Constitution to 
the Federal Government, and this is the difference 



MEN AND THINGS 341 

between the creeds of the Democratic and Republican 
parties. The Democratic doctrine is the freedom of the 
people to exercise those rights of local self-government 
not surrendered in the Constitution to the Federal Gov- 
ernment; while the Republican party maintains the 
supremacy of the Federal authority over the local affairs 
of the States, even to the installation and maintenance 
in power of a governor never elected and the dispersion 
of a House of Representatives duly elected, and that this 
power may be rightfully exercised by the executive 
through the arm of the military. This issue is fairly 
and squarely made. Louisiana is the illustration. It 
can not be evaded. This usurpation must be sustained 
or repudiated. If sustained, constitutional liberty in 
this country is dead; if repudiated, the supremacy of 
the Republican party is ended. It remains for the 
American people to decide it. 'No graver question ever 
engaged the attention of any people or the deliberations 
of any assembly, the number of public meetings 
throughout the country shows with what intense anxiety 
the great heart of the American people throbs at its con- 
templation. 

This question of usurpation can not be answered by 
charges of treason and rebellion in the late deplorable 
war. That national calamity is past. The issue it in- 
volved was submitted to the arbitrament of the sword, 
and the award was against the South. The people of 
that section accept the situation and abide the result. 
They pressed their bleeding lips to the oath of allegiance 
which you presented, and repledged their fidelity to the 



842 MEN AND THINGS 

Constitution and the Union. By that pledge they stand, 
and in its maintenance they would perish. The brave 
men of the South will defend the flag of the Union 
with the same heroism that they bore it on the bloody 
hillsides of Buena Vista and Cerro Gordo. But they 
want liberty with the Union. They re-echo the immor- 
tal sentiment of ISTew England's greatest statesman, 
"Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and insep- 
arable." 

When the people of this great Republic meet at the 
approaching centennial, they want no State crushed 
beneath the iron heel of military despotism, bound by 
the cruel chains of slavery, bleeding in the dust from 
wounds inflicted by Federal bayonets. They wish to 
meet the people of this country on that occasion from 
the East, ISTorth, and West as brethren, identified in 
interest, sharing the same hopes, animated by the same 
patriotism, and involved in a common destiny, and in 
the spirit of magnanimity and fraternity forget and 
forgive the bitter and unfortunate past; and drawing 
inspiration from the spirit of our fathers, on that hal- 
lowed ground, rekindle on the altar of a common country 
the flame of freedom. The institutions of this country 
can not be perpetuated by force. They rest for support 
upon the hearts and aifections of the American people. 
Then let justice be done to suffering, down-trodden 
Louisiana. Let the Federal soldiers be withdrawn from 
her soil; leave her ruined yet patient people to govern 
themselves. And let us inaugurate an era of equality 
among the States and of devotion to the Constitution; 



MEN AND THINGS 343 

an era of peace, of justice, of friendship. And let us 
maintain and transmit to posterity unimpaired the sa- 
cred trust of free institutions and constitutional liberty 
secured to us by the heroism and blood of our fathers. 

SPEECH. 

Delivered in the House of Representatives, Novem- 
ber U, 1877. 

Speech of Hon. H. P. Bell, of Georgia, in Support of the 
Bill Reported by Mr. Ewing from the Committee 
on Banhing and Currency to Repeal an Act En- 
titled an Act to Resume Specie Payment. 

The bill for the repeal of the resumption clause being 
imder consideration — 

Mr. Bell said: 

Mr. Speaker, on the 14th day of January, 1875, the 
act known as the resumption act was approved. H 
originated in the Senate and was passed in the House 
of Kepresentatives under the operation of the previous 
question. No debate was had upon the bill in the 
House and no opportunity for debate allowed by those 
who had the matter in charge. After testing the wis- 
dom of this law by its practical operation, a large por- 
tion of the American people have arrived at the conclu- 
sion that at least that provision of the third section 
which relates to the redemption in coin of the United 
States legal-tender notes should bo repealed. A ma- 
jority of the Committee on Banking and Currency, 
acting in obedience to what was supposed to be pop- 



344 MEN AND THINGS 

ular will, as well as in conformity with the convictions 
of their own judgment, reported, at the first opportu- 
nity, the bill under consideration for that purpose. 
The question thus raised, though simple in its statement, 
involves, in anything like an extended discussion of it, 
the consideration of every material interest in this great 
country. If I were capable of so doing, I should not 
attempt an elaborate discussion of all the questions of 
interest that legitimately belong to it. I shall, there- 
fore content myself with a brief statement of the 
reasons which induce those whose interest and opinions 
I represent to desire the passage of the bill as well as 
those which control my own judgment in supporting it. 

I submit and undertake to maintain the following 
propositions : 

First. That it is impracticable, if not impossible, 
for the Government on the 1st day of January, 1879, 
to redeem in coin the United States legal-tender notes 
outstanding. 

Second. That, if it were possible or practical it 
would be unwise in policy and ruinous in results to do 
so. Can the Government, in view of all its obligations 
and its available resources, present and prospective, 
redeem in coin its outstanding legal-tender notes on the 
1st day of January, 1879? In view of the distressed 
condition of the country, can we afford to risk the exper- 
iment? How will resumption affect the volume of 
the currency, the amount in circulation, the price of 
property, the value of labor, and the prosperity of all 
the great industries of the country ? These are grave, 
practical questions which the tax-burdened and poverty- 



MEN AND THINGS 345 

stricken millions of this land are pressing with more 
than an ordinary interest and earnestness. It seems 
to me that the amount to be redeemed and the means 
of redemption are important factors in the solution of 
the problem. 

The amount of United States legal-tender notes out- 
standing now is $354,490,892. How much this amount 
may be varied before the first day of January, 1870, 
it is impossible to tell. I assume that it will not be 
gi-eatly changed. What the means of the Government 
for the redemption of these notes wdll amount to on the 
1st of January, 1879, is left to conjecture. But if the 
Government owned and controlled all the coin and bul- 
lion now in the country, and could use every dollar of 
it in the redemption of the notes, it would pay but 
little over 50 per cent. We do know from authentic 
ofiicial resources that the amount of United States legal- 
tender notes now outstanding is $354,490,892. And 
we know from the same source (the report of the Comp- 
troller of the Currency) that the whole amount of gold 
and silver coin and bullion in the entire country is 
estimated at only $186,678,000, which, deducted from 
the amount of the notes leaves an excess of $167,812,892 
of the notes over the entire amount of coin and bullion 
in the whole country. So that if the Government now 
owned and controlled all the specie in the country and 
was in a condition to use every dollar in redemption, 
it could redeem but little over one half of the notes. 
But it is not true that the Government owns all the 
gold and silver coin and bullion in this country, or 
that it can control it all. 



346 MEN AND THINGS 

The precise amount of coin in the Treasury belonging 
to the Government on the Ist day of November, 1877, 
is $97,479,643.94. The difference between this sum 
and $354,490,892, the amount of legal-tender notes, 
outstanding at same date, is $257,021,248,06. To show 
the ability of the Government to redeem these notes, 
the opponents of this bill encounter the difficult task 
of proving that $97,479,892.94 in coin will redeem 
at par, $354,479,892 in legal-tender notes. To do 
which they Avill have to invent a new system of math- 
ematics, for it certainly can not be by any mode of 
calculation with which the world is now acquainted; 
or they will have to do what is equally difficult; show 
that with decreasing revenues and a public debt of 
$2,047,350,700.75, less cash in the Treasury, the Gov- 
ernment, on the first day of January, 1879, after dis- 
charging all its indispensable obligations, Avill be able 
to redeem, at par, in coin, its outstanding legal-tender 
notes. He is a bold man w^ho will undertake it, and 
will succeed in convincing the world that he has a larger 
endowment of courage than judgment. 

It is unquestionably clear that resumption now would 
be an impossibility. It is not within the reach of any 
human power to show that it will be possible or practi- 
cable on the first day of January, 1879, to show that 
the amount to be redeemed and the means of redemp- 
tion will be so varied by that time from what they are 
now as to attain an equality. 

Eesumption is not to be gradual. The obligation im- 
posed upon the Government by the law which it is pro- 
posed to repeal is to redeem in coin the outstanding 



MEN AND THINGS 347 

United States legal-tender notes on the first day of 
January, 1879. The only qualification is that the 
notes shall be presented in sums of more than $50. 
That one gold dollar will pay, at par, five paper dol- 
lars, is a logical as well as a mathematical absurdity. 
There can be no gi-eat change in the amount of coin 
required to pay the interest on the national debt be- 
tween the present time and the time fixed by law for 
redemption. 

There is no reasonable probability that the produc- 
tion of gold in this country will increase, or that there 
will be an influx of it from abroad, since Germany and 
Great Britain, as well as some other European Govern- 
ments, have adopted it as the sole standard of value. 
The public revenues are falling off and taxation has 
reached the utmost limit that can be borne by the peo- 
ple. How can the Government be able to resume specie 
payments at the time prescribed by the resimiption act ? 
"Where is the coin to come from? How is it to be ob- 
tained ? Will the bankers of the House and the oppo- 
nents of this bill enlighten the country upon these ques- 
tions ? Star-spangled banner and spread-eagle speeches 
do not answer the question nor satisfy a suffering peo- 
ple. To say that the effect of resumption will be 
to appreciate the legal-tender notes to an equality in 
value with gold, and that therefore the holders of the 
notes will not want the gold and will not present them 
for redemption, is to trifle with the question. With 
the experience of the last ten years in the fluctuations 
in values of money and property, does any one suppose 
that the holders of these non-interest-bearing notes 



348 MEN AND THINGS 

would keep them a day after they could be exchanged 
for gold. To suppose that they would is to suppose 
that human nature will be changed and men will cease 
to love gold, or that human reason will be .lost and 
men will cease to understand values. 

Some of the most ardent oppnents of this bill, as 
I understand, admit that it is impossible, as a matter 
of fact, for the Government to redeem these notes 
in coin at the time provided in the resumption act. 
They would insist, I suppose, that the Government can 
begin to redeem them, and as soon as redemption is 
commenced the holders of the notes will take the will 
for the deed ; by a sort of etherealized imagination take 
it for granted that resumption is an accomplished 
fact. This logic may convince resumptionists, capital- 
ists, and gold gamblers, but the honest and unfortunate 
debtor, whose property is sacrificed at sheriff's sale, and 
the unemployed laborer, whose starving family stretch 
out their skeleton hands for bread, will not understand 
a piece of financial jugglery that fattens wealth and 
famishes want. It may be insisted that the Govern- 
ment can borrow the coin from abroad that may be 
necessary to redeem its notes. I prefer to let high 
Republican authority answer that suggestion. A for- 
mer Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Boutwell, upon this 
subject, says: 

"The Bank of England, foreseeing that there would 
be an accumulation of coin to the credit of the United 
States which might be taken away bodily in specie, 
gave notice to the officers of the Treasury Department 
of the United States that the power of that institution 



me:s[ and things 349 

would be arrayed against the whole proceeding unless 
we gave a pledge that the coin should not be removed, 
and that we would re-invest it in the bonds of the Uni- 
ted States as they were offered in the markets of Lon- 
don. We were compelled to comply. It was in the in- 
terest of the Government that we should do so, because 
we did not want the coin and we did want the bonds. 
But it shows the feeling that animates the central finan- 
cial power of Great Britain. And it shows a policy on 
the part of that institution, and of every kindred insti- 
tution on the continent of Europe, sustained by all the 
banking and commercial classes, by which, if it were 
necessary and this proposition should become a law, 
the bonds of the United States would be excluded from 
the stock market of every financial city. There are in 
the nine great banks of Europe only $600,000,000 in 
specie. That specie is held as a reserve with reference 
to their local business and with reference to the great 
transactions that take place between the countries of 
continental E<urope and Great Britain. 

I may say, without disparaging the author of these 
propositions, that it is useless for Congress to waste 
time looking in that direction. There is another fact, 
known to all. We recovered at Geneva an award 
against Great Britain of $15,500,000. AMien this 
claim was maturing, the banking and commercial classes 
of Great Britain induced the government to interpose^ 
and by diplomatic arrangement through the State De- 
partment here, operating upon the Treasury Depart- 
ment, secured the transfer of securities, and thus 
avoided the transfer of coin. 



350 MEN AND THINGS 

In the presence of these facts, is it to be assumed for 
a moment that we can go into the markets of the world 
and purchase coin with which we can redeem four, 
three, two or even one hundred millions of outstanding 
legal-tender notes ? 

This is the judgment of a gentleman whose position 
and relation with the financial world enabled him to 
thoroughly understand the question whether the Gov- 
ernment could borrow coin to redeem the legal-tender 
notes. It has been shown that the Government can not 
redeem these notes because it does not possess and can 
not control the means to do so. 

I consider the second proposition: That, if it were 
possible or practicable, it would be unwise in policy and 
ruinous in results to do so at the time specified. Sup- 
pose the Government were to redeem every dollar of 
outstanding legal-tender notes on the first day of Jan- 
uary, 1879. This redemption would necessarily with- 
draw them from circulation and leave in circulation 
only $351,861,450 in national bank notes. Assuming 
that there would be no change in the amount from the 
present time until the time fixed for resumption, what 
would be the inevitable result of such diminution in 
the amount of the currency ? It could not be otherwise 
than disastrous in the extreme. Of course, the gold 
would not enter into circulation, it would be hoarded. 
A circulation so inadequate to pay the debts and carry 
on the business of the country, the shrinkage in values, 
the paralysis of all the industries, and the starvation 
of the laboring classes would involve us in such ruin as 
the world has seldom witnessed. 



MEN AND THINGS 351 

Resumption does not mean the appreciation of tho 
legal-tender notes to an equality with the present value 
of gold, but it means an immeasurable increase in the 
price of gold and its banishment into the vaults of banks 
and the coffers of misers, with a corresponding decrease 
in the value of all kinds of property, and a reduction 
in the wages of labor, for which the country is not pre- 
pared, and to which it would not and ought not to sub- 
mit. If you ask how the people will help themselves, 
I answer, at the ballot-box. Capital is not the only 
power in this country. The popular intuition, even be- 
fore the demonstration of experience, discovered tho 
mischief of the resumption act, and it will find the rem- 
edy. The remedy for political evils and unwise legis- 
lation may come slowly, but it will come surely. 

I but state a truism when I say that when money is 
high, and the price or value of property falling, money 
is the most valuable, and therefore the most desirable 
form of wealth, and "like the leaves of sibyl," it in- 
creases in value as it diminishes in quantity. 

If redemption on the first day of January, 1879, were 
practicable, and gold with which the notes were re- 
deemed and withdrawn from circulation would be 
hoarded until the falling prices of property and labor 
resulting from the contraction in the volume of cur- 
rency, produced thereby, had reached the bottom, and 
then it would appear to possess the one and control the 
other. The country is overwhelmed with a burden of 
debt — national. State, county, municipal, and individ- 
ual — estimated at seven and a half billions, an amount 
that almost defies the computation of figures. In the 



352 ME2^ AND THINGS 

opinion of many tlie amount of money now in circula- 
tion is not sufficient to meet the wants of forty-five mil- 
lions of people in the highest state of civilization, with 
wants constantly multiplying and demands for money 
daily increasing, crushed with debt and burdened with 
an exhaustive and unjust system of taxation. 

Upon the assumption that resumption succeed and 
the legal-tender notes should be redeemed, the national- 
bank notes, which, as we have seen, now amount to 
only $316,775,111, will constitute the only circulation 
with which the people can pay their debts and carry on 
the business of life. This is to take place suddenly, at 
a time arbitrarily fixed by law, when the public reve- 
nues are diminishing, labor unemployed and unfed, 
clamoring for work and suffering for bread, property 
of every description rapidly depreciating, and the gold- 
bearing securities of the Government as rapidly appre- 
ciating in the hands of purchasers who obtain them at 
prices under the nominal value, and universal bank- 
ruptcy impending over millions of people, who at the 
same time possess a country without a parallel in history 
in the extent, variety, and richness of its resources. Is 
it not singular that the people should challenge the wis- 
dom of a policy under which all these evils are found 
to exist and seek to change legislation in which they are 
believed to have their origin ? And it is not strange 
that Representatives fresh from them should be in haste 
to present and press bills to remonetize silver and re- 
peal Procustean resumption acts. 

Does any one insist that the amount of the currency 
is larger than the necessities of the people require? 



MEN AND THINGS J53 

Does any one deny that activity, enterprise, and im- 
provement are co-incidents of a large circulation ? Does 
not every one at all familiar with the subject know 
that, when money is abundant and cheap, forests are 
felled, factories are built, railroads are constructed, 
and that town and cities spring up where savages roam- 
ed and solitude reigned. 

These facts are known by the testimony of all finan- 
cial experts and political economists, and by the more 
reliable evidence of experience in all nations and ages. 
Upon this subject one of the greatest men this country 
ever produced, and at one time Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, William H. Crawford, said, "that all intelligent 
writers on currency agree that, where it is decreasing in 
amount, poverty and misery must prevail." 

The American Review for 1876, upon the same sub- 
ject, says: 

"Diminishing money and falling prices are not only 
oppressive upon debtors, of whom in modern times 
States are the greatest, but they cause stagnation in bus- 
iness, reduced production, and enforced idleness. Fall- 
ing markets annihilate profits, and it is only the expec- 
tation of gain which stimulates the investment of cap- 
ital, inadequate employment is found for labor, and 
those who are employed can only be so upon the condi- 
tion of diminished wages. An increasing amount of 
money and consequently augmented prices are at- 
tended by results precisely the contrary. Production is 
stimulated by profits resulting from advancing prices. 
Labor is consequently in demand and better paid, and 



354 



MEN AXD THINGS 



the general activity and bouyancy insure capital a wider 
range and higher remuneration. 

This is but a history of a small and large circulation 
always and everywhere. 

The following statement compiled by an intelligent 
gentleman formerly in the United States Treasury 
(Mr. Alexander Delmar), shows the effects of expansion 
and contraction in this country from 1832 to the pres- 
ent time to be as follows : 



YEARS. 



FroDi 
From 
From 
From 
From 
From 
From 
From 



1832 to 

1837 to 

1843 to 

1857 to 

1861 to 
1865 to 

1870 to 

1873 to 



1837 
1843 
1857 
1861 
1865 
1870 
1873 
18 



PER CAPITA. 



EFFECT. 



Expansion from $7. 50 to 114.00... Activity. 
Contraction from $14.00 to ?6.90.. Depression. 
Expansion from $6.90 to $16.70... Activity. 
Contraction from $16.70 to $i8.70 Depression. 
Expansion from $13 70 to $28 50.. Activity. 
Contraction from $28.50 to $20.80 Depression. 
Contraction from $20. 80 to $14.oO Banliruptcy. 
Contraction from $14.00 to $10.00 Beggary'crlme, strikes 

I and suicide. 



Much has been said in this discussion of the amount 
of currency and coin in France, and the prosperity 
which prevails in that country. Upon this subject Mr. 
Delmar says: 

France has a population of thirty-three millions and 
a national currency of $2,000,000,000, or more than 
$60 per capita. We have not half that amount, with a 
population of forty millions (I may add nearly forty- 
five millions,) w^ith a per capita currency of less than. 
$10. France is prosperous and we are pressed beyond 
endurance. 

If we have had a terrible war, so has France. If our 
national resources were exhausted so were those of 
France. What makes the difference? 



MEN AND THINGS 



355 



The debate in this House has developed the fact that 
precisely the same results followed contraction and ex- 
pansion in Great Britain from 1818 to 1826. The 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr, Kelly) showed 
from Tallis's Illustrated Atlas of Modern History of the 
World the following : 



YEARS. 


CIRCULATION. 


EFFECTS. 


18l8.._ 


£47,727,000 
41358,948 
35,129,405 
23,699.500 
26,743,260 
29,502,422 
33.124,658 
34,220-738 
30,911.323 


Prosperity. 


1819 


Distress. 


1820 

1821 „ 

1822 


Distress. 

(Great distress, connty 
t meetings for relief. 


1823 


1824 _ 

1825 

1826 _. 


) Great prosperity and 
S speculation. 



Here stand the facts. What do they teach ? What do 
they mean if they do not mean that distress follows con- 
traction and that activity and prosperity follow expan- 
sion? Will the opponents of this bill interpret these 
facts if they do not teach that bankruptcy and ruin will 
follow the withdrawal of $354,490,892 United States 
legal-tender notes from the circulation w^ith no provision 
to supply them with something in their stead? It is 
worse than idle to insist that gold will take their place 
in the circulation. Resumption of specie payment in 
Great Britain, in 1821, brought ruin upon a generation 
in the reduction of the value of property and the wages, 
of labor. It will do precisely the same thing in the 
United States, in 1879, unless the bill under considera- 
tion becomes the law of the land. 

It will be conceded that the great bulk of the indebt- 



356 MEN AND THINGS 

edness of the country was contracted upon the basis of 
an inflated currency and exorbitantly high prices, 
either during the war or since its close. Payment 
is demanded when the currency is contracted and when 
prices of property are ruinously low. But one result 
has followed, but one result can follow, inability to pay. 

The third section of the resumption act has done 
much toward reaching this result. The country was as- 
sured and understood that while that section provided 
for resumption, it provided for it in a way that would 
not affect the volume of the circulation. But this turns 
out to be a delusion. A\Tiether it was pressed through 
the House of Representatives under the previous ques- 
tion to prevent the discovery of this delusion, I will 
not undertake to say. But one thing is clear from the 
official statement of the Comptroller of the Currency, 
and that is that under the construction of the Treasury 
Department it is a most vigorous measure of contrac- 
tion. Under its operation there have been withdrawn 
directly of national bank notes in less than two 
years, $35,086,339; of United States legal-tender notes, 
$27,595,447; making in the aggregate, $62,681,786., 
The gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Phillips) showed 
that about $44,000,000 more had been retired in va- 
rious w^ays under the operation of the act. 

We have had abundant crops, a large excess of 
imports over exports in our foreign commerce. We 
have cut down the expenses of the Government; still 
debts are unpaid and interest accumulating; values are 
shrinking and labor is almost starving. 

I will not stop to speculate upon the amount the 



MEN AND THINGS 357 

country is daily losing in the stagnation of its business 
and the idleness of its labor. If these damaging effects 
have resulted from a contraction that is gradual and 
continual, covering a period of two years, how can ruin 
be obviated from the revulsion ensuing from contrac- 
tion by the withdrawal suddenly and certainly of more 
than one-half of the currency now in circulation with- 
out an equivalent to take its place ? It will as certainly 
follow as effect follows cause. We can not imperil the 
fortunes of this country upon an experiment so hazard- 
ous to every interest, public and private. The recent 
"strike," that startled the country from its center to its 
circumference with the magnitude of its proportions, 
the celerity of its movements, and the destructiveness 
of its operations, involving the loss of many lives and 
millions of property, contains a lesson from which capi- 
tal may take warning and the Government derive wis- 
dom. 

The charge that the repeal of the resumption act 
means the repudiation of the obligation of the Govern- 
ment to redeem the United States legal-tender notes, 
scarcely rises to a dignity that entitles it to contempt. 
The question of repudiation is not involved in this 
question of repeal, either directly or indirectly, imme- 
diately or remotely, l^o time is specified in the obli- 
gation, when redemption shall take place. The law 
passed long after the obligation was incurred, fixing 
the time when it should be discharged, is no part of the 
obligation. The law can be repealed and no time fixed, 
leaving the question of time undetermined, as it was 
before the resumption act was passed, without affecting 



358 MEN AND THINGS 

the obligation and without violating the public faith 
in the slightest degree whatever. There is not the least 
danger that the Government will ever repudiate its ob- 
ligation to pay the legal-tender notes, for two reasons: 
first, nobody in the United States favors it, and in the 
second place, the Constitution declares that the validity 
of the public debt shall never be questioned. 

The question is not whether the Government shall 
ever redeem them, but whether a law that fixes without 
reason a time for redemption, shall be repealed. I ap- 
prehend that every friend of repeal on this floor and in 
this country wishes to see the Government pay every 
debt it owes. But they do not wish to see the property 
and prosperity of the country destroyed in an effort 
to do a thing which the Government is unable to do anvl 
under no obligation to do, to wit, redeem $354,490,892 
in legal-tender notes on the 1st day of January, 1879, 
when it never promised to redeem them on that nor any 
other specified day. I look for a time in the near fu- 
ture when the Government will be able to redeem every 
dollar of these notes. This house, in my judgment, has 
taken an important step in that direction in passing the 
bill to remonetize silver. If this should be done, it 
will convert the large amount of silver in the country 
from a commodity to a currency, and to the extent of 
its production swell the volume of the currency. It will 
depreciate the value of gold, because equally with gold it 
will be a legal- tender in the payment of customs duties 
and all debts except those required by the terms &£ the 
contract to be paid in a different currency. 

If the country can be saved from the ruin which tfic 



MEN AND THINGS 359 

resumption act is precipitating upon it by its early re- 
peal and the statesmanship of the country rises to an 
equality with the emergencies upon it, there will be 
but little difficulty in returning within a few years to 
specie payments. It can not be done, however, while 
the bane of all prosperity, fluctuation in the value of 
money and property, shall continue. It can only be 
done when the volume of the currency becomes steady, 
the values of money and property become settled, the 
laws of supply and demand are restored to their normal 
relations, labor and capital re-adjust their relations 
upon the basis of reasonable profits for the one and just 
compensation for the other. 

The question has been raised in this debate why la- 
bor was cheaper in Europe than in the United States. 
The reason is obvious. Capital has accomplished 
there wdiat it seeks to do here. It has dictated the price 
of labor, and the large standing armies of the European 
despotisms suppressed complaint. The people of these 
United States do not intend to allow capital to control 
labor, nor do they intend to support a large standing 
army in times of peace to suppress the expression of 
opinion or hush the cry of want. 

I have endeavored to show that the resumption act 
should be repealed, because it is impossible for the Gov- 
ernment to discharge the obligation which it imposes 
npon it, for the reason that it does not possess and can 
not obtain the coin necessary for that purpose. And 
that if it were possible to do so, it would necessarily 
withdraw from the circulation, already small as com- 
pared with that of other countries, an amount that 



360 MEN AND THINGS 

would leave the people without the means of paying 
debts and carrying on the affairs of life ; that it would 
depreciate gold and drive it into the vaults of banks 
and coffers of misers, and so reduce the value of proo- 
erty and labor as to destroy the one and starve the other, 
and thus overwhelm the country in bankruptcy and 
ruin. That these results must inevitably follow, a 
very large portion of the people of this country have 
not the slightest doubt. 

With discreet legislation, the future of this country 
is full of hope. We are returning to constitutional 
methods of administration. The ballot dominates the 
bayonet. Military despotism has ceased in the South. 
The virtue, intelligence, and honor of her people find 
expression in the character and patriotism of her rep- 
resentatives upon this floor and in the Senate. Sec- 
tional animosity has been displaced by national con- 
cord and fraternity. The reign of the carpet-bagger 
has closed ; universal contempt has embalmed him in in- 
famy and sent him to history. It is but just to the col- 
ored people of the South to say that since let alone, 
they conduct themselves with propriety. High respon- 
sibilities devolve upon us. The inauguration of a sys- 
tem of legislative and administrative policy that will 
develop all the material resources of the country, ex- 
tend its commerce, correct the disorders of its finance, 
reward its labor, protect its capital, maintain its faith, 
reform its revenue system, and mitigate the burdens 
of the people are the high obligations we have assumed 



MEN AND THINGS 361 

upon entering these halls, and, for the fidelity with 
which we discharge them, we must answer at the bar of 
an enlightened public judgment. 

1 now yield the balance of my time to my colleague. 

Pensions to the Soldiees of the Mexican and 

Indian Wars. 

Speech of the Hon. H. P. Bell, of Georgia. Delivered 
in the Rouse of Representatives, February 9, 1878. 

The House being as in Committee of the Whole on 
the state of the Union upon the subject of the bill (H. 
K. 1^0. 257, reported by Mr. Hewitt, of Alabama, from 
the Committee on Invalid Pensions, at the first session 
of the Forty-Fifth Congress), granting pensions to the 
soldiers of the Mexican, Seminole, Creek, and Black 
Hawk Indian wars — 

Mr. Bell said : 

Mr. Speaker: Governments, under all forms, in 
all ages and every type of civilization, have manifested 
in some way their appreciation of the public service of 
their citizens or subjects. The achievements of states- 
men and the triumphs of warriors are carved in bronze, 
chiseled in marble, or colored on canvas, and thus dis- 
tinguished virtues and great deeds are preserved to his- 
tory and transmitted to posterity. This tribute of ad- 
miration to gi'eatness is creditable to human nature, al- 
though its expression is often long delayed and fre- 
quently partial when bestowed. 

The highest evidence of right to public gratitude 



362 MEN AND THINGS 

which the citizen of this or any country can give is the 
offering of his blood and his life to the Govern?zient in 
the defense of its liberty, the vindication of its rights, 
and the honor of its flag. 

The Government of the United States has evinced ito 
appreciation of the service of its citizen soldiery in pro- 
viding by law, in the form of pensions, a support for 
them when disease contracted in camp or wounds re- 
ceived in battle or advanced age or physical infirmity 
rendered them unable to secure it for themselves. This 
may be regarded as the settled policy of the Government, 
the only exception to it being the in the case of the sol- 
diers of the Mexican war and the Seminole, Creek and 
Black Hawk Indian wars. Whether the support is al- 
ways commensurate with the merits or necessities of 
each particular case, or whether the pension in some 
particular instances may not be fraudulently obtained, 
are questions that I do not now propose to consider. 
There is no American citizen who does not now feel that 
the pittance granted to the heroes of the Revolution of 
177 Q was a poor return for the heritage of freedom won 
by their valor on the field and embodied by their wisdom 
in the Constitution. And there is no American citizen, 
I apprehend, who does not regret, since the death ol 
the last of that band of heroes, that more liberal and 
just provision was not made by the Government for their 
comfort and support while living. But the opportunity 
to cancel that high obligation is now gone, and those 
who had it in their power to discharge it and failed to 
do so are left to the reflections which remorse alone can 
suggest, the never-failing penalty of neglected duty. 



MEN AND THINGS 363 

The soldiers of the Mexican war, and of the Semi- 
nole, Creek and Black Hawk Indian wars, after waiting 
thirty years for the Government to do them the same 
measure of justice it has its soldiers in other wars, in 
conformity with its established policy, and waited in 
vain, have at length appealed to that Government which 
they so faithfully served for that right which has been 
so long deferred and so persistently refused. These 
veterans pay without complaint their proportion of 
twenty-eight millions annually in pensions to the sol- 
diers of the Union Army in the late war between the 
States. They likewise pay their part of thirty-eight 
millions annually to support a skeleton army of com- 
missioned officers to guard the Texas border from incur- 
sions from the banditti whose country the Mexican sol- 
diers conquered. They pay taxes also to support the 
establishment at West Point for the education, at pub- 
lic expense, of future officers of the army of the United 
States, to be maintained, at the public expense, in peace 
as well as in war. 

They do not understand how the Government can deny 
their claim and at the same time exhibit such princely 
liberality in granting, in subsidies, $4,500,000 to the 
Pacific Mail Steamship Company to transport Chinese 
into California to be sold into slavery, and $1,387,500 
to the United States and Brazil Steamship Company, 
and $64,623,512 in bonds and thirty-one millions of 
acres of the public lands to the Pacific Railroad, and 
yet be unable to pay a pension of $8 per month to a few 
hundred old men whose valor won an empire from a for- 
eign foe, and cast it, glittering with gold, at our feet. 



364 MEN AND THINGS 

There is no difficulty in understanding how the Govern- 
ment became able to give so much land and money 
away ; the soldiers recovered it for the Government from 
Mexico. But the difficulty consists in reconciling the 
conduct of the Government, according to the standard 
of any nation, civilized or savage, with right of justice, 
in giving the domain and treasure bought with the 
blood of the brave, to soulless corporations, and refus- 
ing to pay to the soldier that which in all other in- 
stances the Government itself has recognized to be the 
highest obligation. If the wish of the people of this 
country could have found expression through the forms 
of law, justice to these men would not have been denied 
in the past; and if it is now permitted to have utter- 
ance, it will not be delayed for a day in the future. 

To subject them to the humiliation of asking for a 
right so manifestly clear, is itself an act of gross injus- 
tice. A government inspired with gratitude for distin- 
guished public service would have magnanimously 
shown it when the first occasion was presented. I do 
not propose to discuss the details of the bill reported to 
the House by the conunittee. I shall certainly give it 
a most cheerful support, and would prefer it if it were 
even more liberal in its provisions for the widows and 
orphans of the dead soldiers. What I propose is to 
examine the gTound upon which the claim for pensions 
is based, and to insist, with all possible earnestness, 
upon its earliest recognition. Who are these men ? 
What service have they rendered to the Republic ? En- 
gaged in the peaceful pursuits of civil life, surrounded 
with domestic joys in the charmed circle of home, un- 



MENANDTHI^'GS 365 

used to the discipline of the camp, and untrained in 
the art of Avar, when their country became involved in 
the war with Mexico, without a regular army, upon its 
call for volunteers they came from the field, the coun- 
ter, the office, and the shop, unallured by the phantom 
of glory and uninspired by the god of ambition to re- 
spond to that call. The ardor of their patriotism su- 
perseded the training of discipline, and their first field 
developed volunteers into veterans — a community of 
citizens at home into an army of conquerors in Mexico. 
Their example taught the world that large standing 
armies, the instruments with which tyrants destroy lib- 
erty, are not necessary to the security of free States; 
that while the genius of our system vests or acknowl- 
edges power in the people, it rests for its support upon 
their affection. It demonstrated that the United 
States could improvise an army of citizen soldiers equal 
to any emergency of defense or conquest, of which truth 
the war with Mexico was at once the illustration and tho 
evidence, and that while with the mercenary war is a 
trade, with the volunteer citizen right is the object and 
patriotism the inspiration. Upon the close of the wa:*, 
reversing the order of transformation of citizen to sol- 
dier, from soldier back to citizen, and equally a patriot 
as citizen or soldier, they resumed their places in civil 
life without a ripple -upon the surface of society, the 
pride of the coimtry and the admiration of the world. 
In all the world none could be found who failed to ap- 
preciate their patriotism and the trophies of their valjr, 
save the Government they so faithfully served, whose 
honor they so signally vindicated, wliose prowess they 



366 MEN AND THINGS 

SO gloriously illustrated, and to whose domain their he- 
roism added an empire richer than all the Orient. 

If these men have accomplished nothing more than 
the demonstration of a military prowess that placed 
the United States in the van of the gTeatest powers of 
the earth, they would have been entitled to the gratitude 
of their country and their kind. The war with Mexico 
showed the possession by the Government of military 
resources that straightened the labyrinthean mazes and 
smoothed the rugged pathways of diplomacy, discover- 
ing to the great powers of Europe other modes of set- 
tling national controversies with us than the last resort 
of kings — the sword. In, considering this claim of 
the Mexican soldiers upon their Government, their 
hardships and sufferings are not to be ignored. They 
were such as are incident to all wars, intensified by an 
unhealthy climate. Subjection to the restraints of a 
rigorous discipline, the weary march, the fearful con- 
tagion, the dreaded hospital, the anxious uncertainties 
of life in the hour of battle, the absence of all comfort 
in the bivouac, and unremitting toil, taxing every re- 
source of physical endurance, and an absence that any 
hour might make final from loved ones at home — these 
were all borne with a resignation that never murmured 
and a courage that never faltered. 

The uniform that distinguishes the soldier is the 
garland that festoons him for the altar. Heroism :s 
exhibited in suffering as well as in doing; as well in 
the disease of the hospital as in the struggle of the 
field. ITor should we forget the claims of tliose 
stricken ones, whose husbands and fathers fell either 



MEN AND THINGS 367 

by disease or in battle, who were denied the sad solace 
of dropping on unmarked graves in a foreign land 
affection's last offering — the tribute of a tear. Their 
claim is sealed in blood and sanctified by the sorrows of 
widowhood and orphanage. Can any appeal to the jus- 
tice or gratitude of their Government be stronger than 
that which they urge ? But let us put this claim on an- 
other ground — on what the lawyers would call a quan- 
tum valebant count — and see how the questions stand in 
that light. What has the service of these soldiers 
availed the Government in the increase of its w^ealth, 
the expansion of its domain, and the augmentation of 
its power? What are the results of their triumph? 
California, Colorado, N'evada, Arizona, Utah, i^ew 
Mexico, and Wyoming were conquered from Mexico. 

Look at California alone! That State now has a 
population of 800,000, with an area of 188,981 square 
miles, or 120,947,840 acres more than the combined 
area of N"ew England, E'ew York and Pennsylvania. 
In 1872, 3,670 vessels bore to the great commercial em- 
porium of San Francisco 1,237,227 tons of commerce. 
The State paid into the Federal treasury in customs du- 
ties alone, $8,184,481. The same year she shipped in 
coin, bullion, gold dust, and the precious metals $19,- 
049,048, and paid in taxes $9,500,000. The produc- 
tion of gold in that single State for a period of twenty- 
five years ending in 1872, amounted to the enormous 
sum of $990,600,000. With commercial advantages 
unsurpassed, agricultural resources sufficient when 
fully developed to supply her own people and feed the 
famine-stricken countries of the East, unrivaled in the 



368 Mi7 2V AND THINGS 

salubrity of lier climate, the fertility of her soil, the 
richness of mines, the magnificence of her scenery, and 
the activity and enterprise of her people, she stands, if 
not the envy, the admiration of her older sisters in 
the Union. 

But the wealth and gi-eatness of this State does not 
exclusively consist in the richness of her mines, the ex- 
tent of her commerce, or the value of her agricultural 
products. Twenty colleges and universities adorn her 
hills and valleys, affording superior advantages for the 
higher cultivation of the arts and sciences. Two hun- 
dred and one newspapers and periodicals, with' a circula- 
tion of 94,100, enlighten the public mind upon all 
questions' affecting their political, social, and material 
interests. Sixteen hundred and twelve schools invito 
her children to the fountain of knowledge, and nearly 
one hundred libraries, numbering over two hundred 
thousand volumes, supply the means of continuing an 
intellectual cultivation begun in the schools. Religious 
instruction is received at five hundred and thirty-two 
churches, accommodating 195,585 persons, and hov/ 
much these elements and instruments of progress and 
greatness have been increased since 1872 I have no 
means of ascertaining. 

If we add to California the area, population, and 
wealth of Colorado, ISTevada, Arizona, Utah, ISTew Mex- 
ico, and Wyoming, we have an area of over 937,875 
square miles — an empire in extent, wealth, and popula- 
tion in a high state of Christian civilization, added to 
the Republic. These are the material results of the 
war with Mexico, wrung by the valor of the men whose 



MEN AND THINGS 369 

claim I urge, from a foreign foe, on foreign soil, and 
cast at the feet of a hitherto ungrateful Government. 
Statesmanship had but little agency in this grand acqui- 
sition. Diplomacy only formulated at Guadaloupe Hi- 
dalgo what blood had purchased at Buena Vista and 
Cerro Gordo. What the future of this empire will be, 
time alone will reveal. Three States are already ad- 
mitted, and Arizona, Utah, N'ew Mexico and Wyoming- 
will soon add four more to the circle of the sisterhood, 
with imdefined resources of wealth and elements of 
development, supplying a home for unnumbered mil- 
lions of free, active, enterprising, and happy people. 

These treasures eclipse the trophies of the famous le- 
gions of Caesar. The Mexican veterans secured them 
from the public enemy and presented them to their Gov- 
ernment, and ask in return a compensation in the form 
of a pension which one-sixth of the customs duties 
paid by California alone into the Federal treasury 
would annually discharge. And they present as an 
indorsement of this claim the action of the legislatures 
of fourteen States of the Union instructing their sena- 
tors and representatives to support it. That patriot- 
ism is intense, indeed, that is not chilled by ingratitude 
so flagrant. If their claim rested on no other ground 
than the value of their acquisitions it would be indis- 
putable upon that alone; and posterity will be aston- 
ished that a right so clear and a claim so just was not 
conceded without dispute and paid without delay. 
But the service rendered by the Mexican soldiers does 
not consist exclusively nor even mainly in the extent 
and value of material acquisitions. ]Srational greatness 



as 



370 MEN AND THINGS 

does not depend entirely upon area of territory nor rich- 
ness of resources. The type of civilization, the charac- 
ter of the people, their respect for the rights of others 
and the courage with which they maintain their own, 
the institutions which reconcile the largest liberty of 
the citizen with the most absolute obedience to law, 
the affection of the people for the Government while it 
exacts their money for its support and their blood for 
its defense are far greater elements of power than mere 
extent of dominion or numbers of population. Greece 
achieved more glory in the defense of Thermopylae than 
Rome won in the conquest of Gaul. The most impor- 
tant service those veterans rendered to their government 
is found in the position their valor achieved for it 
among the great powers of the world. It is true that 
American patriotism and prowess were tested and vin- 
dicated in the war for independence and in the war of 
1812. But these were defensive wars, where heroism 
caught inspiration from the spirit of liberty in the de- 
fense of homes, firesides, and altars. The great cap- 
tains of Europe, affecting contempt for free institutions 
maintained by the affections of the people and defended 
by a citizen soldiery, predicted disaster to our arms in 
the invasion of Mexico. The strength of our Repiib-' 
lican system was on trial. The interested monarchies 
of Europe and the East were the anxious spectators. 
The men who now appeal to you for justice, led by Scott 
and Taylor, were the arbiters of this great question. 
How gloriously they decided it history has recorded 
Victory mingled its light with the stars that deck the 
flag on every field, from the firing of the first gun ?t 



MEN AND THINGS 371 

Palo Alo until it floated in triumph from the capital 
of the Aztecs. Invading a foreign country more than 
a thousand miles from the capital of their own, they 
were met upon its border by a force four times their 
strength in numbers, under the leadership of a chief- 
tain already famous in history, aroused by the incen- 
tive which the consciousness of defending home and 
country can alone inspire. With natural advantages 
for defense seldom found, and obstructions to aggres- 
sive advancement rarely met, these heroic men with 
knightly crests vindicated their country's chivalry, 
avenged its wrongs and bore its flag in triumph in every 
fight and on every field from Vera Cruz to the City of 
Mexico. 

Invincible alike in the skirmish of the chaparrel, the 
charge of the plain, and the assault upon the fort, the 
graves of more than ten thousand who fell by disease 
consecrate the line of march with monumental patriot- 
ism. In a glorious army like this, where every officer 
and every soldier was equally a hero, comparison is in- 
admissible. But even at this distant day the names of 
Clay, Harden, McKee Yell, Kinggold, and Butler, ex- 
cite a pride, kindle an enthusiasm, and challenge an 
admiration constituting a heritage of national fame far 
more valuable than the pension sought by their survi- 
vors or the empire won by their blood. Of each one of 
these it may be truly said — 

His was the hero's soul of fire, 

And his the martyr's deathless name, 

And his was love exalted higher 
By all the glow of chivalry. 



372 menandthiis:gs 

So profoundly impressed were the people of Mexico 
with the prowess of our army, that they proposed to in- 
vest its commander with the chief magistracy of their 
republic. These men were as much distinguished for 
their moderation in victory as their courage in battle. 
They were at once the iinest type and truest exponents 
of American citizens and American soldiers. Since the 
war with Mexico the military capacity of the United 
States for any emergency arising from foreign or do- 
mestic complications has ceased to be a question. If this 
war had been fruitless in other results, the imperishable 
luster it shed upon our arms would compensate its cost of 
blood and treasure, and entitle its soldiers to the justice 
they seek. Much that has been said in favor of the 
claims of the Mexican veterans applies with equal 
force to the brave men who served in the various Indian 
wars mentioned in the bill of the committee. Their 
military service may not have been distinguished by as 
many battles nor as brilliant victories, with as large 
numbers, as that of the army in Mexico. The results 
in wealth and domain may have been far less, yet their 
patriotism was identical, their sacrifices and sufferings 
were equal, and their title to a pension rests upon pre- 
cisely the same foundation of faithful military service 
rendered to their country in the hour of its necessity. 
Millitary merit, in the subaltern or the superior, is not 
always to be measured by the standard of success. The 
mode of Indian warfare is not governed by the code 
which controls the warfare of civilized nations. Its 
very nature imposes all the burdens, inconvenierices, 
dangers and sufferings incident to all wars, without its 



MEN AND THINGS 373 

"pride, pomp, and circumstances." There is some- 
thing thrilling in the grand array of opposing forces 
upon the same plane of civilization, where the destinies 
of empires are to be determined upon a single field and 
the current of history changed from the event. The 
very fact of opposing a foe of equal skill and upon 
equal terms appeals to soldierly pride for the utmost 
display of skill and courage, and stimulates the ardor 
of patriotism by adding the incentive of ambition. 

Indian warfare includes all the hideous horrors of 
war without any of its compensating mitigations. The 
stealthy approach with uplifted tomahawk to the biv- 
ouac, the deadly shot from the secret covert upon the 
unsuspecting victim upon the march, the blazing house 
consuming the remains of slaughtered women and chil- 
dren, degenerate Indian warfare into horrible massacre 
or bloody assassination. It was this kind of warfare 
in which the courage and patriotism of the soldiers 
were tested in the Seminole, Creek and Black Hawk 
w^ars. They accomplished all that was attainable. 
They conquered peace ; they secured protection to the 
people; and they vindicated the authority of the Govern- 
ment. They did more: they discharged with fidelity 
the highest duty they owed to their Government ; they 
have waited forty years for the Government to discharge 
its duty to them. How much longer shall they wait? 
How many more in advanced age and extreme poverty 
will we allow to go down to their graves stung with in- 
gratitude, disappointed in their hopes, and suffering 
for bread? In the name of the American people, 
whose sense of justice is outraged at the delay, let us 



374 MEN AND THINGS 

gladden the hearts of these gallant old soldiers as they 
stand on the confines of the grave bv according to them 
now that which they should have had a quarter of a 
century before. 

It seems to me that the Interior Department has put 
itself to much trouble to show, upon a basis of calcu- 
lation utterly fallacious, that there was a great number 
of these soldiers, and that therefore it would require 
a large amount to pay the pensions. This logic that 
a debt should not be discharged because it is large, the 
country is too dull to appreciate, even if the fact as- 
sumed were really true. But it is not true that the 
number is as large as it is supposed to be. After the 
most thorough investigation of the question by the Mex- 
ican Veterans' Association, covering a period of several 
years and every State in the Union, the actual number 
of the survivors of the Mexican, Seminole, Creek and 
Black Hawk wars amounts to about thirteen thousand 
and four hundred, including all that would be entitled 
to pensions under the provisions of this bill. 

The committee in its very able report submits this 
nimaber as the nearest possible approximation to the 
truth. The committee shows that $1,286,400 per an- 
num would pay the pensions, and that this amount 
would constantly decrease as the average age of the 
beneficiaries is about sixty years. Compared with the 
resources of the Government and the merit of the claim, 
the amoimt dwarfs into a trifle. If it were impossible 
to pay this amount, could we not retrench some extrava- 
gant and useless expenditure — some subsidy — and save 
enough from prodigal waste to discharge an honest ob- 



MEN AND THINGS 375 

ligation? But no such retrenchment, even where re- 
trenchment ought to be had, is necessary for this pur- 
pose. These aged soldiers of the Republic have pre- 
sented their claim. Thev put it upon the ground — 

First. That it is the established policy of the Govern- 
ment to reward in this way the service which they ren- 
dered. 

Second. They put it upon the ground of value of these 
services in the expansion of domain, and the acquisition 
of material wealth. 

Third. They put it upon the ground of the sacri- 
fices they made and the sufferings they endured for the 
public welfare. 

And, last, they put it upon the ground of the imper- 
ishable luster shed upon our arms by their valor. And 
standing upon this foundation of truth and justice they 
appeal to the American people, through their represen- 
tatives in Congress assembled, for justice long delayed 
but never controverted. Shall they appeal in vain? 
Will no remorse linger in the consciences of men who 
who refuse this claim because complaint can not come 
from the silence of the grave? Can some future Con- 
gi-ess relieve the present one from responsibility by 
granting the pensions when the beneficiaries are dead? 
Can the Government hope to do justice by granting the 
pension and at the same time save the money by waiting 
until nobody is left alive to accept it ? Let us save the 
Government from injustice so monstrous and reproach 
so shamei'ul. 



376 MEN AND THINGS 

Refunding the ISTational Debt — Postal Savings 

Banks. 

Speech of Hon. Hiram P. Bell, of Georgia, in the 
House of Representatives, April 2Jf, 1878. 

The House having met for debate, Mr. Vance in the 
chair as speaker pro tempore — 

Mr. Bell said : 

Mr. Speaker: The financial question is the great 
economic problem of this country and of this age. Its 
satisfactory solution is the supreme desire of the Ameri- 
can people. With a country the gTeatest in extent and 
richest in resources of ancient or modern times, under 
a system of government the most beneficent that human 
wisdom ever formed, we present to-day a sad spectacle 
of poverty, suffering, and distress. The stagnation of 
business, the paralysis of industry, the idleness of labor, 
the destruction of property in the shrinkage of values 
and existing and impending bankruptcy, are expres- 
sions with which we have become familiar by daily rep- 
etition in these halls since we met in October. Differ- 
ent causes have been assigned and various explanations 
ffiven for this unfortunate condition of the countrv. 
There are those who suppose that they have found the 
cause in extravagant living, in overtrading, and in wild 
and reckless speculation. They suggest, of course, 
economy in personal and family expenditures as a pan- 
acea for all our ills. Others have ascertained that the 
"Iliad of our woes" comes from an inflated, irredeem- 
able paper currency, and recommend as a sovereign spe- 



MEN AND THINGS 377 

cific the resumption of specie payment. This school of 
political philosophers teaches the paradoxical doctrine 
that you can relieve the poverty of the people by de- 
stroying their property and increasing their debts. 
This solution finds its equal in absurdity only in that 
other theory that attributes our troubles to what is 
called overproduction. The advocates of this theory 
would insist that the distress which the country now 
suffers results from the abundance of the products of 
our mines, fields, and factories. 

If this gi'and discovery that so unceremoniously ex- 
plodes the doctrines of Adam Smith be true, then the 
remedy, simple and complete, is at hand. We have 
only to destroy what we have and cease to produce any 
more. All this nonsense is worse than trifling with the 
gravest questions of public interest. The people of 
this country thoroughly understand the cause of their 
distress. They find it in the overwhelming indebted- 
ness of the country — the Government and the people — 
and in the financial policy of the Government manipu- 
lated by syndicates in the interest of non-taxed capital, 
and against the property and labor, upon which class 
legislation has imposed enormous burdens of iniquitous 
taxation. That financial policy they have arraigned 
and denounced, and that financial policy it is the ob- 
ject of this bill to change and improve. A simple state- 
ment of what the legislation upon this subject has been 
is the clearest demonstration of its folly and of its in- 
justice. The national-bank act secures a monopoly of 
the banking business to the bondholders. This monop- 
oly is protected by a prohibitory tax of 10 per cent. 



378 MEN AND THINGS 

upon the issues of State banks. The Government pays 
to the bondholding bankers 6 per cent, in gold semi- 
annually, and gives them the use of $90,000 on every 
$100,000 in bonds deposited in the treasury; and all 
this is done at an annual expense to the people of at 
least $15,000,000. 

Between the years 1862 and 1868 the Government of 
the United States issued and sold bonds amountins: to 
the sum of $2,059,975,700, for which it realized in gold 
or gold value $1,371,424,238, a loss to the Government 
and a gain to the purchasers of the sum of $678,551,- 
460. The interest on this sum for ten years, at 6 per 
cent., amounts to the sum of $407,130,876. There is 
therefore now a debt upon the American people, prin- 
cipal and interest, amounting to the gigantic sum of 
$1,085,682,336— one-half of the publie'debt, for which, 
in fact, the Government never received one cent, and for 
which the creditors never paid one cent. And this is 
the fountain from which the bitter waters of distress 
now deluging the entire country have flowed; and this 
is the debt around which constitutional guarantees have 
been thrown. The fourteenth article of amendment to 
the Constitution declares, among other things, "That 
the validity of the public debt shall never be ques- 
tioned." This debt was originally payable in paper 
money or lawful money. It was not originally payable 
in coin. The act of 13th of March, 1869, pledged the 
faith of the Government to its payment in coin ; the act 
of 12th of February, 1873, demonetizing silver, left 
gold the only legal-tender coin in which it could be paid. 

The financial policy which I arraign has fastened 



M EN AN D TH IN GS 379 



upon the people of this country this vast gold-bearing 
debt under which they are staggering and with which 
they are crushed, when the Government received noth- 
ing for it, and w^hich in fact constitutes the spoils 
W'hich war speculators coined out of blood. Since this 
debt was created and converted into a gold debt, the pol-, 
icy has been to constantly contract the volume of the 
currency, while the population of the country was rap- 
idly increasing, and the wants and necessities of the peo- 
ple steadily multiplying. The amount of the currency 
outstanding in 1866, was $1,696,987,643. In 1876 it 
was only $748,912,072, a reduction in the volume of the 
currency in ten years of $948,074,570, an annual aver- 
age diminution for ten years of $94,807,457. 

The financial system or policy of the Government, 
manipulated by syndicates, gold rings, bondholders, and 
bullion brokers in the interest of capital at the sacri- 
fice of every other interest, culminated in the passagri 
of the act of June 14, 1875. This act required the Gov- 
ernment to redeem in gold the outstanding legal-tender 
notes on the 1st day of January, 1879. To carry out 
the provisions of this act the Secretary of the Treasury 
informs us that he has purchased $15,000,000 of coin 
by the sale of 4 1-2 per cent, bonds, and $25,000,000 
with 4 per cent, bonds. The bonded debt of the United 
States is thus increased the sum of $40,000,000, carry- 
ing an annual interest of $1,670,000, to redeem and 
withdraw from circulation an equal amount of legal- 
tender notes which bear no interest. And the Secre- 
tary informs us that he must have fifty millions more 
of coin to make resnmption practicable, which he pro- 



380 MEN AND THINGS 

poses to purchase with 4 1-2 per cent, gold bonds, thas 
increasing the public debt ninety millions, with an an- 
nual interest of $3,650,000. And this is what it costs 
the people to enable the Government to deprive them of 
the means of paying their debts and prosecuting their 
business. 

With the bonded debt of the United States converted 
by legislation, not by contract, into a coin debt at a high 
rate of interest and constantly increased; silver demon- 
etized, leaving gold the only currency in which the 
debt could be paid ; the legal-tender notes redeemed and 
destroyed or hoarded in the treasury; State banks 
strangled, taxed out of existence, the people of this 
coimtry, numbering nearly fifty millions, would have 
left to them $320,000,000, to pay their debts and con- 
duct their business, of national-bank notes, issued by 
the Government to the banks, to be let out or dra^^^l in 
as their interest or caprice might dictate. 

This legislation is very rapidly making the stock-job- 
bers, gold gamblers, and money rings the owners of the 
property and the masters of the people of this country. 
Thus the financial legislation stood at the meeting of 
the extra session of the Forty-fifth Congress, the resuh 
of which is seen in the fact that the Government se- 
curities were at a premium, the property of the country 
ruinously depreciated and its business destroyed. Af- 
ter this wicked scheme of class legislation, running 
through a period of ten years and indorsed by an admin- 
istration distinguished for its appreciation of gifts, if 
for nothing else, had been accomplished, and while the 
saints who worship only at mammon's shrine, jubilant 



MEN AND THINGS 381 

with triumph, were reveling in high carnival, in fan- 
cied security, Congress met and the "handwriting ap- 
peared on the wall." The people had cast the ballot 
into the scale like the sword of Brennus, and it out- 
weighed their gold. And all at once there rings through 
the land, from these Halls and from a subsidized and 
prostituted press, the cry about plighted faith, public 
credit, and national honor. 

And while the men of this generation and their chil- 
dren are writhing under the burdens this monstrous 
crime against humanity has imposed upon them, like 
Laocoon and his sons in the crushing coils of the ser- 
pent, it is just discovered that it is extremely unwise 
for Congress to legislate upon the subject of finance. 
Political economists and doctrinaires tell us that these 
questions are above legislative control ; that they are 
matters to be regulated and adjusted by commercial 
values and the laws of trade. The Government con- 
tractors, speculators, and bounty- jumpers of the war 
period now serenely draw semi-annually in gold the in- 
terest on their bonds purchased at 50 per cent, of their 
nominal value and exempt from taxation, while the 
Government taxes even the match with which poor war 
widows, ISTorth and South, kindle the fire with which 
they cook their scanty meal. I repeat that the cause 
of the distress upon the country is to be found mainly 
in this stupendous national debt, largely contracted 
without an equivalent, and in that system of legislation 
which has constantly increased its amount by enhanc- 
ing its value and diminishing the means of its payment. 

Having intrenched themselves behind this legislation, 



382 MEN AND THINGS 

conscious of the power with which these spoliations 
have invested them, the extent of their demands is only 
equaled by the offensiveness of their insolence. One of 
their organs has made the announcement that — 

The American laborer must make up his mind hence- 
forth not to be so much better off than the European 
laborer. Men must be content to work for low wages. 
In this way the working-man will be nearer to that sta- 
tion in life to which it has pleased God to call him. 

This is an oracular pronunciamiento from the money 
power that the condition of the American laborer is a 
state of serfdom, and that God has been pleased to ap- 
point him to a station of inferiority in all the relations 
of life. This is the legitimate result of that class legis- 
lation in the interest of money and against all other in- 
terests in the country which I condemn and denounce. 
Yet the laborer pays the taxes and fights the battles of 
the country. And when we warn the people that this 
legislation is establishing a rich class and a poor clas ;, 
and making a line of distinction in men in this Govern- 
ment of freedom and equality, and thus silently but 
certainly subverting our free institutions and destroy- 
ing equality and ultimately liberty, arrogant capital, 
"invisible in war and invincible in peace," concealing 
its cormorant rapacity by a false pretense to the mild 
virtue- of timidity, raises the cry of agrarianism and 
communism, and insists upon increasing the army to 
preserve order and suppress strikes. 

This Congress when it assembled addressed itself 
with commendable dispatch and earnestness to the re- 
lief of the anxietv and distress of the countrv, and com- 



MEN AND THINGS 383 

menced to change the mischievous legislation from 
which our troubles have sprung. 

The passage of the silver bill and the bill to repeal 
the specie-resumption act, if it succeed, will break up 
the conspiracy between foreign and domestic bondhold- 
ers to destroy the country. Stop the contraction of the 
currency and the shrinkage in the value of property. 
Utilize one of the great resources of the country, dimin- 
ish the amount of the public debt by making it payable 
in a cheaper currency and make its ultimate extinction 
a possibility. The country can. never have financial 
prosperity so long as foreign creditors backed by for- 
eign governments control its financial policy in their 
own interest. We want the public securities held by 
our own people and at a lower rate of interest. When 
this shall have been accomplished and capital is made 
to bear its just share of taxation, then we can reform 
our revenue system, reduce taxation, and sooner or later 
discharge the entire public debt. 

In my judgment the bill under consideration will 
contribute more to this most desirable result than any 
measure that has been presented or that can be sug- 
gested. That if it become a law it will afford practical 
and speedy relief to both the Government and people I 
do not entertain the slightest doubt. 

In brief, it provides that any holder of money may 
deposit the same to the amount of $10 in any postal 
money-order office in the United States, to whom Uio 
postmaster shall issue a postal order on the treasury, 
which, when presented in sums of $10 or any multiple 
thereof, sliall be receivable in exchange for postal sav- 



384 MEN AND THINGS 

ings-bonds of the United States, to be issued by the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury in denominations of ten, twenty, 
fifty, and one hundred dollars, bearing interest at the 
rate of 3.65 per cent, per annum, the interest payabl-3 
every three months. These savings-bonds are exchange- 
able for notes of the United States, and also for 4 per 
cent, bonds authorized to be issued under and by virtue 
of the act of 14th of July, 1870. This bill makes every 
postal money-order office in the United States, for all 
practical purposes, a savings-bank in which the holder 
of money may deposit the same in a place of absolute 
security to him. It involves no additional expense. It 
requires no legal machinery except what may readily 
be provided by departmental regulation, adjustable to 
the test of trial and the suggestions of experience. 

The liability of the Government to the depositor is 
the guarantee of his safety; and such bond as the Gov- 
ernment may require under such regulations as the de- 
partment may adopt secures the Government against 
loss. It is a safe and convenient place of deposit, in 
Avhich the earnings of labor and the acquisitions of in- 
dustry can be preserved in sums of twenty-five cents 
and upward to as much as $20 in a day. It will fur- 
nish an incentive to industry, encourage frugality, fos- 
ter economy, and soon develop its beneficent results in 
sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, and feeding 
the hungry. If it be true that recklessness and extrava- 
gance have been productive of all the mischief claimed, 
then the wisdom of that measure or policy that educates 
the people in the direction of economy and supplies 
them with a safe, convenient, and inexpensive means of 



me:s! and things 385 

preserving and increasing the rewards of their toil can 
not be questioned. 

In those sections of the Union where savings institu- 
tions exist it has been found to be true that by this 
means the daily wages of laborers among the poor have 
been carefully husbanded. Daily and weekly deposits 
of small amounts have been made until after a while 
the aggregate would surround them with comfort. And 
this has been the case while there was a painful appre- 
hension of loss from the failure of the banks, which, 
unfortunately, in too many instances turned out to be 
well founded. And while losses in these institutions 
have been numbered by millions, and in the midst of 
wreck and ruin, there is now on deposit in the savings- 
banks of the Union, as shown by the report of the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury, the sum of $843,154,804, de- 
posited by 2,300,000. The American Almanac for 
1878 shows the number of depositors in 1875 and 1876, 
in twelve States, comprising the 'New England States, 
ISTew York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Min- 
nesota, and California, to be 2,414,952, and the amount 
deposited to be $892,785,553. This is an average of 
$369.69 to each depositor. The learned editor of this 
valuable book, after showing that but partial and incom- 
plete returns have been made, says : — 

It may be safely stated, however, from the returns 
which do exist, that the amount of deposits in savings- 
banks throughout the United States reaches, if it does 
not exceed $1,000,000,000 held by about 2,800,000 per- 
sons. 

These facts show the popularity of these institutions. 



386 MEN AND THINGS 

Thej also show that the depositors are the poor whom 
we always have with us, and they further show what a 
vast sum may he saved by a wise system of economy and 
frugality. Can any one doubt, in the face of these 
facts, that an immense amount would soon be saved by 
the poor people of the United States if they had the fa- 
cilities for secure deposit which this bill provides ? 

The savings-bank is an institution of recent origin. 
It had its birth in the present century. Its career has 
been marked by signal success and beneficence. The 
British government has in successful operation a postal 
savings-bank system similar in many respects to the 
one sought to be established by this bill. There were 
in 1876 in her savings-banks, on deposit, about $350,- 
000,000. The postal savings-bank, which this bill will 
establish, possesses the very decided advantage over or- 
dinary savings-institutions of absolute security to the 
depositor. Money-orders are to be issued to depositors 
without interest, it is true, but negotiable by indorse- 
ment, and therefore valuable and convenient as a cir- 
culating medium and receivable in exchange for United 
States bonds bearing interest at the rate of 3.65 per 
cent, per annum of the denomination of ten, twenty, 
fifty, and one hundred dollars. These bonds have all 
the attributes of a medium and an investment. The 
amount, the facility with which the interest can be com- 
puted, and their negotiability by delivery will give them 
popularity with the people as money and as an invest- 
ment. 

If they should not circulate as a medium they are 
exchangeable for TTnited States notes, so that they could 



MEN AND THINGS 387 

be readily converted into money at the will or conven- 
ience of the holder. This exchangeable quality would 
make the currency adjust itself to the demands of trade 
and maintain steadiness in the value of property and 
products. During the business seasons, when crops are 
put upon the market, they could and would be ex- 
changed for notes. And in the intervals of quiet the 
notes would be exchanged for bonds. The markets in 
this way would be relieved from the extortion and spec- 
ulation of the banks. Thus the business necessities of 
the country would be supplied with a currency as occa- 
sion required and capitalists, large and small, with the 
means of a safe investment at a seasonably remunera- 
tive interest. 

The fourth section of the bill provides that all mon- 
eys received into the treasury in pursuance of this act 
shall be applied exclusively to the redemption of such 
bonds of the United States as are redeemable at thj 
pleasure of the government ; and the Secretary of the 
Treasury shall call in of such bonds tliose that bear the 
highest rate of interest. 

The object of this bill is to refund the public debt in 
securities bearing a lower rate of interest, payable In 
currency, change our foreign debt into a debt due to our 
people, and the postal savings-bank system is adopted 
as the means of raising the money to pay existing bonds. 
In discussing this bill and kindred measures two ques- 
tions arise: Is the object desirable, and is the plan 
practicable? I maintain the affirmative of both propo- 
sitions. Reference has already been made to the 
amount of the public debt and the unwise and unjust 



388 MEN AND THINGS 

legislation with regard thereto as the principal cause of 
our present troubles. The total public debt, less cash 
in the treasury, February 1, 1878, is $2,044,287,366. 
Of this amount $1,726,933,750 bears interest in coin 
at the following rates : 

Bonds at 6 per cent $ 748,667,100 

Bonds at 5 per cent 703,266,650 

Bonds at 4 1-2 per cent 200,000,000 

Bonds at 4 per cent 75,000,000 

Total principal $1,726,933,750 

The interest due on this debt on the 1st day of Jan- 
uary, 1878, amounted to $21,827,524. Of the 6 per 
cent, bonds $660,000,000 are redeemable at the pleas- 
ure of the United States, and of the whole $1,452,000,- 
000 are redeemable on or before the 1st day of May, 
1881. The amount of the public debt held by foreig-n- 
ers is variously estimated. The best English authori- 
ties, Seyd and Baxter, estimate the entire amount of 
the debts of this country held abroad, including public 
and private debts of all descriptions, at between twenty 
and twenty-two hundred millions of dollars. Mr. Ed- 
ward Young, Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, esti- 
mates the national. State, municipal, and railroad debts 
held abroad at $1,050,000,000. This does not, of 
course, include private or individual indebtedness. 
There is no means of ascertaining precisely the amount 
of this debt. All, however, agree that it is irrmiensely 
large. The Secretary of the Treasury estimates the 
debt of the United States government held abroad at six 
hundred millions. 



MEN AND THINGS 389 

There are many and cogent reasons why it is de- 
sirable that this debt should be changed from a foreign 
into a domestic debt, should be owned and held by our 
own people. Debt is but another name for slavery. 
The debtor is always to a greater or less extent in the 
power of the creditor. That a large amount of bonds 
was held in Germany I suppose was one of the reasons 
that induced the German Empire to demonetize silver. 
That its demonetization in the United States was pro- 
cured here by the bondholders in conspiracy with the 
creditors there I do not doubt. The financial independ- 
ence of the United States, therefore, requires the owner- 
ship of the public securities at home. The export of 
gold to meet the constantly accruing interest on this 
debt drains the life-blood from the heart of the nation. 

If this debt were refunded in bonds held by our own 
people it would stop the exportation of gold to pay the 
interest. The balance of trade, which last year 
amounted to the sum of $47,202,682, would turn the 
tide in our favor and bring to us an annual influx of 
gold, varying only in amount with that balance. We 
would thus not only not send abroad large amounts of 
gold as now to pay interest, but it would be paid to our 
own people, and we would receive from abroad the ex- 
cess of our exports over imports in coin. The people 
of no government on earth that owes a large foreign 
debt bearing a high rate of interest ever was or ever 
will be prosperous long. But it is true that great na- 
tional prosperity may co-exist with a large public debt 
held at home and for the reason already given. 

The British government is a signal illustration of thiS 



390 MEN AND THINGS 

truth. The public debt of England to-daj amounts to 
$3,850,000,000. It is held by 126,331 of her own 
people. This debt bears only 3 per cent, interest. It 
consists of annuities sold by the government to the peo- 
ple without any time fixed for redemption and with 
but little prospect that they will ever be redeemed. Yet 
with this immense debt upon the Government the 
English are comparatively prosperous. This debt is 
kept at home and the interest is paid to the English 
people and constitutes that much of their general 
wealth. The vast commerce of the Kingdom brings 
into it constantly large quantities of coin and bullion, 
and the government maintains a financial policy that 
keeps all it gets. When we obtained the Geneva award 
of $15,500,000 in gold, England kept the gold and paid 
us in our bonds. With our national debt amounting 
to but little more than one-half of that of Great Britain, 
owned by our own people and bearing a low rate of in- 
terest, we would be independent of foreign creditors and 
foreign governments. And with our immense resources, 
mineral, manufacturing, agricultural, and commercial 
wisely developed, we would speedily become the richest 
as well as the most powerful nation of the world. 

The Eepublic of France is a still more striking proof 
of the proposition that a government may owe its own 
people a. large debt and yet be prosperous. The civil- 
ized world beheld with amazement as well as with ad- 
miration what seemed almost a financial miracle in the 
payment of the Prussian war indemnity. France paid 
in less than two years, in gold and silver, $1,000,000,- 
000, at a time when her expenditures exceeded her rev- 



MEN AND THINGS 391 

enues. It was paid at the close of a war in which two 
immense armies had trampled down the whole face of 
the country. Her capital was riddled with Prussian 
shells and reddened in communistic blood. The sceo- 
tre was passing from a perishing dynasty and her un- 
settled form of government in transition through an- 
archy to a republic. How was this grandest financial 
achievement of all time and history accomplished ? 

It was done in this way: the French government put 
upon the market 5 per cent, rentes or bonds and ap- 
pealed to the French to buy them, and they promptly 
took $1,640,000,000, advancing to the government 
money therefor. A second loan w^as so eagerly sought 
by them that the subscription covered the amount called 
for thirteen times over, compelling the government to 
award the rentes among the subscribers pro rata. x\s 
long ago as 186Y the debt of France was held by 1,095,- 
683 persons of her own people, and now by a much 
greater number. The public debt of France, with a 
population of only 36,905,788 and an area of only 201,- 
900 square miles, amounts to the almost fabulous sum 
of $4,695,600,000 — more than twice as much as our 
own. Her revenues are $514,605,716, while her ex- 
penditures reach the sum of $519,334,162, an excess 
of expenditures over revenue of $4,728,446. Yet 
France has never repudiated any portion of her debt, 
has never dishonored her own paper, which is now at 
par with coin, and has never passed a resumption act, 
and her people are prosperous and happy. 

There must be some solution of this prosperity. It 
can not be found in the extent of value of her commerce. 



392 MEN AND THINGS 

I was astonished to find that for the year 1876 her im- 
ports were only $4,111,000, and her exports $9,280,- 
000, leaving a balance in her favor of only $5,179,000. 
It must be accounted for mainly by the fact that the 
national debt is due to the French people; that the in- 
terest is paid to them, and by them kept at home, con- 
stituting a part of the common wealth, and to the fur- 
ther fact that Trance floats a larger circulation per cap- 
ita than any other civilized nation on earth. At all 
events, it is true that the national debt of France is held 
bj the French people ; that the circulation is more per 
capita than that of any other nation, and that her people 
are more prosperous and suffering less financial dis- 
tress than those of any government in the world. This 
state of affairs does not result from the form nor the sta- 
bility of the government. These are the facts of his- 
tory, and the light they shed upon the question under 
consideration is worth infinitely more than the specula- 
tions of a thousand theorists. Who doubts that, with 
the public debt refunded at a lower rate of interest, 
owned by our own people, the country would soon be 
prosperous ? The government would certainly be inde- 
pendent of foreign capitalists and domestic stock-job- 
bers and bullion-brokers. The object of this bill is the 
accomplishment of this result. 

The refunding of the public debt at a lower rate of 
interest, and the change of its ownership from foreign- 
ers to our own people, in the judgment of a majority of 
the Committee on Banking and Currency, in which I 
concur, will be secured, by the passage of their bill. 
And if this object is attained the first important step 



MEN AND THINGS 393 

will have been taken toward the ultimate extinction of 
the debt. But is this postal savings-bank system a prac- 
tical one? Will it enable the government to raise tho 
money ? The light of experience is always a safe guide. 
The test of trial affords some evidence of what may be 
accomplished. I insist that this plan is feasible. The 
system proposed by the bill of the Committee on Bank- 
ing and Currency is almost exactly the British system. 

That system was inaugurated in Great Britain in 
1863. It started with 301 postal savings-banks. It 
has since extended over Ireland and Scotland. In 187G 
the number was 5,448 with 1,702,374 depositors, 1 in 
19 of the whole population. The aggregate deposits 
amounted to the sum of $134,982,750. Only the poor 
deposit in this institution; it was intended only for 
them. The law establishing them limited the amount 
that could be deposited by one person and contained a 
prohibition against depositing in more than one bank. 
This system has been a success in Great Britain. Why 
should it not be a success here ? It was a favorite with 
the people and continues to be. It greatly diminished 
the deposits in the independent savings-banks, showing 
its popularity over these independent savings-banks with 
the English people. It would no doubt do the same 
here. But what if it did? Who has a right to com- 
plain ? Certainly the depositors have the right to place 
their money where, in their judgment, it will be safest 

The confidence of the American people in these insti- 
tutions will be shown by the amount of money they 
place in them. Wliat is that amount? The deposits 
now held by the savings-banks in twelve States of the 



394 MEls! AND THIXGS 

Union, as far as can be ascertained, as has already been 
shown, are $843,154,804. The report of the Comp- 
troller of the Currency for 1875 shows that the deposits 
for that year in the savings-banks, State banks, and 
trust companies of the United States amounted to $1,-- 
346,014,813. This estimate is based upon imperfect 
reports. The amount is unquestionably larger. It 
may be safely assumed to be $1,500,000,000. I take 
it for granted that a very large portion of these depos- 
its will be withdrawn, put into the institution created 
by this bill and invested in the bonds for the issue of 
which it provides, because of the superior security to 
the depositor and because of the facility with which the 
deposit can be changed into a currency or an invest- 
ment. 

There is very nearly enough money lying inactive cr 
drawing a small interest in the savings-banks. State 
banks, and trust companies to pay the bonded debt of 
the United States. This bill makes it to the interest of 
the holders of this money to put it where the govern- 
ment can use it for that purpose. The system we pro- 
pose establishes forty-one hundred and forty-five postal 
savings-banks located at convenient and accessible 
points in every State and Territory in the Union, af- 
fording facilities to almost every community in the en- 
tire country for the preservation and investment, with- 
out trouble and without expense, of the proceeds of the 
labor and industry of the people. And at the same time 
it enables the government, without additional taxation, 
to raise the money to pay off the public debt now exist- 
in<r and refund it at an interest but little over one-half 



MEN AND THINGS 395 

as much as it now pays. Does any one doubt the popu- 
larity of these savings institutions in the light of experi- 
ence in Great Britain and the United States? And in 
view of their popularity does any one doubt that with 
the increased facilities afforded and incentives inspired 
by this bill if it become the law^, a sufficient sum would 
be raised to enable the government to refund the public 
debt in the bonds proposed, and thus relieve the country 
from the high rate of interest it now pays, and that too 
within a very few years ? With this accomplished, pay- 
ment of the national debt, now pressing like an incubus 
upon the prosperity, the property, the hopes, and the 
hearts of the people of this country, would speedily fol- 
low. Then syndicates, money-rings, and combinations 
would be unable to shape the policy of the government 
and control the destiny of the country. There is no con- 
flict between capital and labor. Each is equally an im- 
portant and indispensable factor in the solution of the 
problem of civilization. Each is the complement and 
the auxiliary of the other. Capital supplies labor with 
employment and rewards its endeavor. Labor furnishes 
to capital the means of profitable investment and opens 
new fields for adventurous enterprise. Each is equally 
entitled to legislative protection and encouragement, 
and to each is the world and the race equally indebted 
for their progress. 

It is not against capital in the abstract nor when le- 
gitimately employed that complaint is made. But it is 
the corrupt and illegitimate use of money by bullion- 
brokers, stock-jobbers, and gambling combinations in 
the accomplishment of legislation in their own interest 



396 MEN AND THINGS 

and against the public interest that the country con- 
demns and denounces — that class of money-rings that 
produce corners in gold and panics in business to satiate 
an accursed thirst for gold that shames even that of Pi- 
zarro and his robber band. We have recently witnessed 
the humiliation of a great State by the bribery of the 
Legislature to enact a charter for the government of the 
greatest city in the Union that enabled one of these 
rings to rob the honest tax-payers of that city of mil- 
lions of dollars. It is that greed for gain that acts 
from no motive but interest, that recognizes no law but 
selfishness, and worships no god but gold, that finds its 
fittest expression in the bowlings of the maniacs around 
the counters of the exchange on Black Friday. 

It is against these that the people of this country en- 
ter their solemn protest, and it is against these that ev- 
ery interest of this country demands protection. I 
honor the men who by energy and industry acquire for- 
tunes, and who while they increase their means aid pub- 
lic enterprise and advance the public prosperity. And 
I honor men even more, like Peabody dead, and Corco- 
can living, who having acquired fortunes by the same 
honorable means dedicate them to great benevolent and 
humanitarian purposes. But capital is protected. We 
must not forget protection to the poor, says Sismundi 
in his political economy : 

On whatever side we look the same lesson meets us 
everywhere — protect the poor — and ought to be the 
study of the legislator and the government. Protect 
the poor, for in consequence of their precarious condi- 
tion they can not contend with the rich without losing 



MEN AND THINGS 39? 

every day some of their advantages. Protect the poor, 
that they may keep by law, by custom, by a perpetual 
contract, that share of the income of the community 
which their labors ought to secure to them. Protect 
the poor, for they want support that they may have 
some leisure for intellectual development in order to 
advance in virtue. Protect the poor, for the greatest 
danger to law, and to public peace and stability, is the 
belief of the poor that they are oppressed. Protect the 
poor, if you wish industry to flourish, for the poor are 
the most important of consumers. Protect the poor, if 
your revenues require to be increased, for after you 
have carefully guarded the enjoyments of the poor you 
will find them the most important of contributors. 

This bill makes no distinction in classes. It is ex- 
actly equal in its operations on all, as all laws should 
be, and still its passage, in my judgment, would be a 
peculiar blessing to the poor for the encouragement to 
industry which it gives and the means of preserving the 
rewards of that industry which it affords. Again, if it 
should accomplish the results claimed for it, and T doubt 
not it will, it will supply the money to pay the foreign 
debt and refund the national debt at a lower rate of in- 
terest in securities that will be held by our people. Tt 
would enable us to accomplish another most desirable 
object, the reduction of taxation and the reform of a 
revenue system that is unjust in its discrimination, op- 
pressive in its amount, unwise in its policy, and a dis- 
grace to the civilization of the nineteenth century in the 
mode and instruments of its enforcement. Fruitless 
efforts are made at each session of Congress to mitigate 



398 MEN AND THINGS 

the burdens which it imposes upon the people. We are 
informed by the Secretary of the Treasury that we must 
diminish appropriations or increase the revenues. 

If the interest on the public debt can be reduced, as 
proposed, nearly one-half, the gold sent abroad to pay 
the interest kept at home and paid out to our own peo- 
ple, with the influx of gold from abroad which the bal- 
ance of trade gives us, then taxation can and will be 
reduced. But so long as we are compelled to raise 
money to pay the interest on the public debt at its pres- 
ent rate I see but little hope of less taxation. 

Another benefit resulting from this measure is the 
identification of all classes in every section of the Union 
and in almost every community of each section with the 
credit of the government. They will scrutinize more 
closely its financial policy and guard more vigilantly its 
expenditures and hold to a more strict accountability its 
officers and agents, and may prevent the precipitation 
upon the country of the question of repudiation. 

N^early one-half of the families of France have money 
in the public funds — are creditors of the government. 
To have their names in the grand livre of the public 
debt is esteemed an honor. It is an honor that is ea- 
gerly sought, as the promptness with which the rentes 
were taken shows. One of the effects of this wide dif- 
fusion of the public securities among the people of 
France is to unite them in maintaining the public 
credit. Of course they look upon the public debt as 
a most sacred obligation. The reason is obvious; it 
is due to themselves, and for it they paid a full consid- 
eration. They therefore maintain the public faith from 



MEN AND THINGS 399 

motives of interest as well as sentiments of patriotism. 

This sentiment does not change with a change in the 
form of their government. It is the same in the re- 
public and in the monarchy. In our system of govern- 
ment, based upon the popular will and resting for sup- 
port upon the popular affection, it is of the first im- 
portance that the people should be identified in interest 
as well as in sympathy with the Government in its pol- 
icy as well as its principles. The public debt of the 
United States, held by nearly fifty millions of people 
scattered all over our vast territory, would take from 
the financial question its sectional element, with the 
animosities which will always attach to it so long as it 
remains sectional. It will take from it its class 
element. And if this debt is refunded it will avoid 
the question of the consideration of the debt which the 
American people may be driven to the necessity of 
raising unless we change our financial policy. 

Another vital result of this measure will be the gen- 
eral diffusion of the money paid out for interest over 
the whole country. It will not only not go out of the 
country, as now, but it will not be concentrated in 
one or two great money centers. It will flow out from 
the treasury like the blood from the heart, to the ex- 
tremities of the country in every direction and through 
all sections, vitalizing industry, rewarding labor, and 
stimulating enterprise. 

My conviction is thorough that, with silver remone- 
tized and tliat vast resource of national wealth aiilized 
in currency, the resumption act repealed and any fur- 
ther contraction of the volume of the currency pre- 



400 MEN AND 7' H I N O S 

vented, this bill passed into a law and faithfully admin- 
istered, the whole public debt of the United States can 
be speedily refunded at a rate of interest but little 
more than half what we now pay, and the current of 
specie changed from foreign countries to us instead of 
from us to them, and that "gravitation shifting will 
turn the other way," from depression to activity, from 
bankruptcy and ruin to prosperity and wealth. 

Then we can develop the grand and diversified re-, 
sources of this magnificent country, whose vastness and 
variety defy and fatigue the computation of mathe- 
matics. 

Then we can abolish a revenue system that violates 
the Constitution, that outrages popular sentiment, that 
wrings from honest toil the earnings of its sweat, and 
that exhausts the substance of the people by the enor- 
mity of its demands. 

Then the sound of hammers, the blasts of furnaces, 
the whir of wheels, the hum of spindles, and the whis- 
tle of engines will fill the land with the music of in- 
dustry. Then the Government can demand her awards 
against foreign powers in gold, and not be compelled 
to receive them in its own bonds. And then the peo- 
ple of this country, disenthralled from the financial 
slavery fastened upon them through the forms of law 
by bondholders and syndicates, can reap the fruits of 
their toil, rest in the protection of the law, and rejoice 
in the possession of their country. 

Mr. HUMPHREY. I move that the House do now 
adjourn. 



MEN AND THINGS 401 

The motion was agTced to; and accordingly (at ten 
o'clock and five minutes p. m.) the ITonse adjourned. 



Speech of the Hon. Hiram P. Bell, of Georgia, Deliv- 
ered in the House of Representatives, January 23, 
1879, in Support of the Bill Reported by Mr. 
Goode froii the Committee on Education and. La- 
bor, to Set Apart the Proceeds of the Public Land 
for the Education of the People. 

The House being in Committee of the Whole, and 
having under consideration the bill (H, R. ISTo. 3542) 
to apply the proceeds of sales of public lands to the 
education of the people, &c. — 

Mr. Bell said : 

Mr. Chairman: The bill under consideration for- 
ever consecrates and sets apart the net proceeds arising 
from the sale of the public lands for the education of 
the people. It does not change, nor affect in any way 
whatever, any law now in force authorzing the pre- 
emption of public lands, nor the entry of public lands 
for homesteads, nor does it interfere in any manner 
with the power of Congress over the public domain. 
It provides after paying the expenses of sale, that 
the whole of the net proceeds shall be distributed among 
the several States, Territories and the District of Co- 
lumbia upon the basis of population between the ages of 
five and twenty-one years. For the first five years — the 



402 MEN AND THINGS 

whole of said proceeds and for the next five years one- 
half to be apportioned to the several States and Ter- 
ritories and the District of Columbia, according to 
the numbers of their respective population of ten 
years old and upward who can not read and write, 
as shown from time to time by the last preceding 
published census of the United States. It further pro- 
vides that one-fourth of the money appropriated by this 
act shall be given to the colleges shown as agricultural 
colleges, established or hereafter to be established in 
accordance with the act approved July 2, 1862, unless 
in any case the Legislature of a State or Territory 
shall otherwise direct. 

In a word, it gives three-fourths of the amount 
to the cause of popular education and one-fourth, sub- 
ject to the control of the State and Territorial Legis- 
latures, to the aid of agricultural education. It pro- 
vides that after ten years the whole amoimt shall be 
invested in bonds of the United States bearing a rate 
of interest at 4 per cent, per annum, principal and 
interest payable in coin, the interest thereon to be 
applied to free education in conformity with the pro- 
visions of the bill. 

This bill contains ample provisions to secure the 
application of the fund to the object intended and ap- 
propriate penalties for its misapplication. 

I apprehend that no great difference of opinion 
exists and that no controversy will arise upon the de- 
tails of this measure. I^or can any question of con- 
stitutional power arise. 

The second clause of section 3, article 4, of the Con- 



MEN AND THINGS 403 

stitution declares that "The Congress shall have power 
to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations 
respecting the territory or other property belonging to 
the United States; and nothing in this Constitution 
shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the 
United States, or of any particular State," 

This provision grants plenary powers to Congress 
to dispose of the public domain. 'No one will hazard 
his reputation for intelligence by denying that the 
power to dispose of the territory necessarily includes 
the power to dispose of the proceeds of the territory. 
The ownership of the territory necessarily involves the 
right and power, in the absence of any constitutional 
qualifications or limitations, to dispose of it and its 
proceeds. 

But the question upon which a difference of opinion 
may exist is whether the disposition proposed by this 
measure is wise. And to the consideration of this great 
question the attention of the country is invited, and 
upon it the favorable action of Congress invoked. It 
has passed into a maxim that the preservation and per- 
petuity of our institutions depend upon the virtue and 
intelligence of the people. The question of man's ca- 
pacity of self-government is still an unsolved prob- 
lem. Every effort hitherto made has resulted in fail- 
ure. We are now making the world's last experiment 
under conditions more favorable to success than 
any that history records. The recognition of power, 
of sovereign political power in the people, is the dis- 
tinguishing attribute, the very genius of our system. 
The rights, duties, and powers of executive, legislative, 



404 MEN AND THINGS 

judicial, and ministerial officers are all defined, pre- 
scribed, and limited by law. The untrammelled ballot 
— the sole peaceful instrument of original, inherent, 
political power — is the power behind the throne that 
is greater than the throne. Every ballot is a vital fac- 
tor in determining the destiny of millions. It there- 
fore follows that upon the intelligent and wise exer- 
cise of this power all the great moral, social, and civil 
interests of society in this country depend. This ques- 
tion is not ephemeral in its nature, sectional in its char- 
acter, nor local in its influence. It is as wide in its 
range as the wants of humanity, enduring as the quench- 
less fires of intellect, and deals with the destiny of 
races. There is no question of public expenditure, ex- 
cept the expenses of administering the government and 
payment of the public debt, so purely national in its 
object as this. 

All expenditures for railways and canals, the im- 
provement of rivers and harbors, the erection of pub- 
lic buildings, &c., contain local as well as national ele- 
ments, and not unfrequently engender local and sec- 
tional prejudices and animosities. But every State, 
every section, and every individual in the Republic 
is deeply interested in the qualifications of every citi- 
zen to discharge the obligations and meet the high re- 
sponsibilities of American citizenship. 

The public domain was acquired by the common 
blood and the common treasure of the people, and it 
seems to me that there is a peculiar fitness in devoting 
it to their education. Then the basis of distribution is 
one of perfect equality — illiteracy for ten years and 



MEN AND THINGS 405 

population thereafter. It may be urged that the ba- 
sis of illiteracy is unequal because it gives the larger 
portion of this fund to the South for ten years. It is 
true that the South would get the larger portion for 
that period, but it does not follow that the distribution 
is unequal for that reason. Equality and justice con- 
sist in meeting the necessities of the case. The educa- 
tion of the illiterate is the object, and this distribution 
recognizes the right of every illiterate child to an equal 
participation in this benefaction. But this issue of 
inequality or injustice is an unfortunate one for the 
opponents of this bill to raise. While Georgia and 
Virginia, receiving only an equal amount per capita 
for their illiterate with all the other States, would 
receive in the aggregate more than any of the others, 
it may be interesting to inquire what contributions to 
the national Treasury these two States have made by 
the cession of their territory, and how they compare 
with the contributions of the other States, and also what 
States have been the beneficiaries of the Federal Gov- 
ernment in the way of internal improvements and pub- 
lic works. 

From 1789 to 1873 the Federal Government ex- 
pended in public works, railroads, canals, and wagon- 
roads, the sum of $207,999,664.77. Of this $18,594,- 
049. 4G was expended in the sixteen Southern and border 
States, $174,885,371.21 in the ^rthcrn and Western 
States and Territories, and $15,520,224 in the District 
of Columbia. Of the aggregate simi of $207,999,664.77, 
$103,294,501.35 were appropriated in bonds and money 
to public works from 1865 to 1873 ; the remaining 



406 ME1<J AND THINGS 

$104,705,163.43 to railroads, wagon-roads, and canals 
from 1789 to 1873. Of this sum neither Georgia, 
Texas, nor West Virginia received one dollar. Vir- 
ginia, N'orth Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, 
Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Mis- 
souri received $5,480,172.94, while the other States 
and Territories received $99,224,990.49. 

Georgia ceded to the Federal Government the ter- 
ritory now constituting the States of Alabama and 
Mississippi with the express stipulation in the deed 
of session that "it should be considered as a common 
fund for the use and benefit of the United States, 
Georgia included." The Government realized from 
this magnificent domain $40,000,000 in cash, while in 
the distribution of $104,705,163.43 for works of in- 
ternal improvement among the States, Georgia did not 
receive one cent. Besides, the United States this day 
owe her $36,000 for money she expended for the com- 
mon defense in the Revolutionary war. The State of 
Virginia ceded to the Government the territory com- 
prising the greater part of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana 
and Illinois, containing an area of 137,860 square 
miles, property worth $10,329,669,974, while she has 
received of the $104,705,163.43 only $57,538.27. The 
Government had received up to 1850 from the sale of 
public lands ceded by Virginia $80,000,000. 

This grand old Commonwealth, after having given 
away an empire, stands "like royalty in ruins," strug- 
gling with misfortune, poverty and debt, with elevated 
crest and unbroken spirit. She urns in her heart the 
ashes of her heroes and statesmen; the lofty device of 



MEN AND THINGS 407 

sic semper tyrannis still emblazons her shield. Wrap- 
ped in the imperial robes of her ancient sovereignity, 
she stands not at your door a mendicant asking alms, 
but the mother of States and of statesmen, demanding 
for her illiterate children an equal participation in 
the treasure her bounty bestowed. 

Georgia shelters her two hundred and seventy-five 
thousand illiterate under her arch supported by wis- 
dom, justice, and moderation, and in the calmness of 
conscious dignity points to the magnificent domain of 
Alabama and Mississippi and the forty millions the 
Government received from the gift as the evidence of 
her right to an equal share of this treasure. In the 
presence of these facts avarice itself must stand 
abashed, and no whisper of inequality or injustice be 
heard or breathed. 

The last census discloses the humiliating fact that 
there are nearly six millions of children in the United 
States over ten years of age who can neither read nor 
w'rite. Every chapter of our legislative historv rec- 
ognizes the constitutional power of Congress to aid the 
education of the people. Many laws have been passed 
and a vast amount of the public lands donated for this 
purpose. Individual effort and parental affection and 
solicitude have contributed much toward the intellec- 
tual development and cultivation of the people of this 
country. The different religious sects throughout the 
country, stimulated by a legitimate denominational 
pride, animated by a generous emulation and inspired 
by the loftier sentiment of Christian philanthvophy, 
have employed all their energies and exhausted all their 



408 MEN AND THINGS 

resources to promote the cause of education and ad- 
vance the standard of a Christian civilization. Eight 
hundred and thirtj-four thousand four hundred and 
eleven noble men and women, worthy to wear ''the red 
wreath by martyrs won," instruct weekly in Sunday- 
schools over six millions of children. States have 
endowed and maintained colleges and universities. 
Every section and every State bristles with spires 
of colleges, male and female. I believe every 
State in the Union now has established by organic laAv 
a system of free public schools supported by taxation; 
still the deplorable fact meets us everywhere, and at 
all times, that there are six millions unblessed by any 
and all of these agencies, with the light of le:irning, 
who are starving at a banquet and famishing at a 
fountain. And yet these children are soon in part to 
bear the ark that contains the oracles of popular liberty 
and the covenant of free institutions. The education 
of the masses in this country, at least in the rudimen- 
tary principles of learning, is demanded by every con- 
sideration that patriotism, philanthropy, and religion 
can urge. Neither denominational church enterprise 
nor private effort, much as they have done, can accom- 
plish this most desirable object. Experience has 
shown that some system established by law, harmonious 
in its machinery, universal in its operation, and perpe- 
tual in its duration, is required. Experience has also 
demonstrated that the establishment and maintenance 
of such a system is an undertaking of the gTeatest dif- 
ficulty, involving the utmost exercise of patience, the 
largest share of liberality, and the highest order of 



MEN AND THINGS 409 

statesmanship; for the reason that its establishment 
and successful operation depend upon so many condi- 
tions rarely found to exist in combination. 

The people of the Southern States are engaged in a 
heroic struggle with these difficulties, which are nu- 
merous and formidable. The system encountered at the 
threshold the opposition of enemies, the fears of 
the timid, the doubts of the faithless, the apprehension 
of friends, and the poverty of all. Every step taken 
discovered some new obstacle in the way of success. 
There are but comparatively few large cities and towns 
in the South ; the greater part of that section of the 
Union is rural, the people are engaged in agricultural 
pursuits, the population in the country is sparse, and 
great diflSculty was found in the location of school- 
houses so as to accommodate the largest numbc-r and 
equally distribute the benefits of instruction. But the 
greatest difficulty with which they had to contend, and 
which it is the object of this bill to obviate, to some ex- 
tent at least, was the want of means. All will readily 
recognize money as an indispensable element of suc- 
cess; and that we do not possess. The losses resulting 
directly and indirectly from the war, the overwhehning 
burden of debt, public and private, with which the peo- 
ple are crushed, and the enormous taxation necessarily 
imposed upon them, make it doubtful whether the sys- 
tem of free public schools in the Southern States, so 
courageously inaugurated, will not have to be aban- 
doned in despair or left to languish and ultimately 
perish for want of support unless timely aid comes from 
some quarter. Those who have not taken the trouble 



410 MEN AND THINGS 

to examine into the extent of these losses have but little 

conception of their mag-nitude. Take, for illustration, 

the State of Georgia: 

The taxable property in Georgia was valued 
under oath by the tax-payers in 1860 
at $672,322,777. 

In 1868 it was valued at 191,235,520 

A loss of 481,087,257 

This includes 450,000 slaves, valued at $302,694,833. 
The losses, aside from the slaves, amounted to $188,- 
392,424, an amount nearly equal to the whole taxable 
property in 1868. It will be borne in mind that this 
property was valued at a time when cotton brought a 
high price, when the volume pf the currency was 
large, before the contraction policy of Secretary McCul- 
loch was inaugurated and before the war values had 
shrunk to a normal condition. If we add to these 
losses the duplication of the public debt, the consequent 
increase of taxation, the subversion of our labor system, 
and the revolution in our modes, habits, industries, 
and economies, not only of a life-time but of timi; im- 
mem^orial, some just judgment can be formed of our 
poverty and condition to commence and prosecute an 
expensive system of popular education. And yet Geor- 
gia probably suffered less than most of the South- 
ern States. I have purposely refrained from allu- 
sion to the crucifixion of reconstruction through which 
we passed. I have no fancy for rekindling the fires of 
hate and passion that deluged a continent in blood, nor 
have I any respect for the man who ignores the vital 



MEN AND THINGS 411 

issues of the living present and coming future to in- 
dulge in crimination and recrimination for the low 
purposes of party or for any other purpose. 

Under these circumstances of discouragement and dif- 
ficulty we have inaugurated this system of public edu- 
cation, and are now struggling to maintain and make it 
a success. It has in every Southern State the sanction 
of organic law. The provision upon this subject in 
the constitution of Georgia is as follows : 

There shall be a thorough system of common schools 
for the education of children in the elementary branches 
of an English education only, as nearly uniform as 
practicable, the expenses of which shall be provided 
for by taxation or otherwise. The school shall be free 
to all children of the State, but separate schools shall 
be provided for the white and colored races. Author- 
ity may be granted to counties upon the recommenda- 
tion of two grand juries, and to municipal corporations 
upon the recommendation of the corporate authority, 
to establish and maintain public schools in their respec- 
tive limits by local taxation; but no such local law 
shall take effect until the same shall have been sub- 
mitted to a vote of the qualified voters in each county 
or municipal corporation and approved by a two-thirds 
vote of persons qualified to vote at such election, and 
the General Assembly may prescribe who shall vote on 
such questions. 

Emancipation has immensely swelled the number 
to be educated, and therefore increased the demand for 
means. This increase in number occurred precisely 
at the time when the means were most diminished. 



412 MEN AND THINGS 

The additional number brings no material aid, except 
perhaps the single item of poll tax levied upon the 
colored people. Under the educational system of every 
Southern State the colored people are entitled to an 
equal participation with the whites in the school fund. 
There is no distinction, except that the white and col- 
ored schools are separate. 

Whatever differences of opinion may have existed, 
or whatever theories may have been advanced or spec- 
ulations indulged respecting the capabilities of the 
negi'o race for intellectual development and distinction, 
with proper facilities for culture, it is clear that the 
truth can be ascertained by the test of trial. This ex- 
periment the white people of the South have deter- 
mined, if possible, shall be made. In making it they 
discharge an obligation while they dispense a benefac- 
tion. The history of the negro race is a sad one. It 
has been the sportive plaything of capricious fortune. 
Its destiny has been wrought by agencies over which 
it had no control. Hugging for countless ages the 
torrid zone, the influences of habit and climate devel- 
oped the animal nature and emasculated the intellec- 
tual and moral powers, leaving barbarism as the result. 
The contact of the negro with the white race has hith- 
erto been, in the main, under conditions that confined 
the means of their advancement to imitation and obser- 
vation. ISTeither history nor tradition brings from 
them any contribution to civilization in the achiovment 
of arms, the discoveries of science, or the inventions of 
art. I have said that the white people of the South are 
but discharging an obligation to the negi'oes in an effort 



MEN AND THINGS 413 

to educate their children. They served us before eman- 
cipation, they were faithful to us in the dark days of 
the war, and they have, under the circumstances and 
temptations surrounding them, demeaned themselves 
well since the surrender. 

What were the circumstances surrounding them? 
They were suddenly transformed from slaves to freed- 
men; they did not and perhaps never will know who 
was responsible for their enslavement. They would 
naturally hold their former masters responsible and re- 
gard the agents of the Federal Government as their de- 
liverers; and thus the avenues to their confidence and 
credulity were opened. The Freedman's Bank was es- 
tablished to be plundered by knaves, and the Freedman's 
Bureau organized to control their political affiliations 
under the pretext of managing their affairs. Artful 
villians appealed to their communistic instincts by 
false promises of an agrarian division of property. In- 
famous adventurers swore them to deadly hostility to 
the whites in secret conclaves in the darkness of mid- 
night, and aroused their superstition by administering 
the oath over skeletons and coffins. Xewly clothed 
with the rights, privileges, and immunities of citizen- 
ship, they were marched and countermarched on elec- 
tion days to the stirring music of drum and fife around 
the polls in the presence of disfranchised patriotism and 
ostracised virtue and intelligence. They were elevated 
from prison cells to legislative halls, and converted 
from sweating convicts into pompous legislators, ex- 
changing the humbler occupation of bearing burdens 
for the loftier business of making constitutions. And 



414 MEN AND THINGS 

at last Federal legislation undertook to bridge the social 
gulf separating the races, established by nature and 
extending "down to earth profound and up to heaven," 
and invite them over to perfect social equality with the 
superior race. 

Yet with all these powerful influences pressed upon 
them, let it be said to the infinite credit of the great 
mass of the colored people that they have conducted 
themselves with a propriety and exhibited a capacity 
for usefulness in society that has more than met the 
expectations of their most judicious friends. If occa- 
sional riots have attended or preceded elections, they 
have been instigated and manipulated outside cf the 
South, or by the agents of parties outside, to inflame 
and control public opinion pending closely contested 
elections in other states, with the view of controlling 
important elections. And thus the colored people have 
been made the unwitting instruments of occasional 
disorders which have their conception in foul con- 
spiracies outside of the South, and for which the white 
people of the South are falsely held responsible. The 
relations of friendship existing between the races in 
the South are not at all surprising; it is but the ligiti- 
mate effect of obvious causes and results from tradi- 
tional family attachments not in any wise incompatible 
with superior and subordinate relations. The races are 
identified in interest and in neighborhood. The deal- 
ings of the white race with the black have been charac- 
terized by the strictest justice, fairness, and honesty; 
the colored people have received from them sympathy 
in their sorrow, assistance in their misfortunes, and 



MEN AND THINGS 415 



encouragement in their struggles ; all of their political 
rights have been conceded with cheerfulness and en- 
forced with fidelity; an upright and learned bench 
always assigns for the defense of the accused who are 
unable to employ counsel the ablest lawyers the bar 
supplies ; and now, in almost hopeless poverty, the white 
people are paying heavy self-imposed taxes to test the 
experiment of their education. 

If the colored people are the "wards of the nation," 
if the Federal Government is the guardian of these 
people, this bill and this occasion furnish the finest 
opportunity it will ever have to discharge the most im- 
portant duty of the guardianship — the education of the 
wards. They stand here by the millions through their 
representatives and insist that the Government ^vill at 
least aid their late owners in this humane effort to im- 
prove their condition; and this appeal they emphasize 
with the pathos of helplessness, of poverty. How far 
their general education, if it can be accomplished, would 
affect their inclination to manual labor and impair their 
capacity for its performance, is a question that may 
well excite serious apprehension. Living as they do 
in a purely agricultural section, and adapted as their 
labor is to the climate and productions of that section, 
their manual labor is not only indispensable to their 
own support, but of the first importance to the prosperity 
of the whole country. But the consideration of tlais 
question is foreclosed by the general judgment of the 
country that the experiment shall be made. The prac- 
tical question now^ is, how to secure the means to make 
it. Since the organization of the Government, Con- 



416 MEN AND THINGS 

gress has donated to the cause of education, under differ- 
ent acts, land amounting in the aggregate to 95,737,T14 
acres, and the siun of $47,785,197.93 in money. The 
greater portion of the land was given to the jSTorthwest- 
ern States by setting apart for educational purposes, in 
that section, sections 16 and 36. Upon her annexation 
to the Union the State of Texas reserved her public 
lands, and has therefore ample resources for the sup- 
port of her educational system. But she stands the 
solitary exception among the Southern States, who have 
received only a trifling sum compared with the amount 
received by other States, Virginia and Georgia less than 
almost any of them, although each ceded to the Gen- 
eral Government an empire in extent and wealth, and 
now in the extremity of their poverty, when the 
number of their illiterate population has been 
doubled, they invoke the aid which the bill 
proposes to extend. They do so in common with 
the other Southern States, not only to educate the white 
children within their borders, but to educate the ignorant 
colored race in which one-eighth of the sovereign polit- 
ical power of the Republic is vested by the Constitution 
and laws of the United States. Thirty-five Represen- 
tatives of the American people on this floor symbolize 
the power of the negro race, two-fifths of which — four- 
teen in number — accrued from emancipation; .o say 
nothing of the improvement of their intelligence, their 
morals, and their elevation in the scale of civilization. 
Does not the qualification for citizenship, which educa- 
tion alone supplies, demand imperatively that speedy 



MEN AND THINGS 417 

and ample provision be made for that education ? 

Are not the institutions of this country imperiled by 
the ignorance of so large a number with whom political 
power is deposited, whose votes from ignorance, are 
liable to be controlled by prejudice or purchase? Is 
not the Government under some obligation to furnish 
the means to qualify these people for the enjoyment of 
the right and the exercise of the power which is so im- 
ceremoniously and bountifully thrust upon them ? This 
bill provides that one-fourth of the money appropri- 
ated by it shall be given to the agricultural colleges un- 
less the Legislatures of the States and Territories shall 
otherwise direct; thus devoting one-fourth of the sum 
to agricultural education. The judgment of Congress 
and the country has been made up upon the wisdom and 
propriety of fostering intelligence in the cultivation 
of the soil of this country. That judgment is recorded 
in the act establishing these colleges and appropriating 
a part of the public land to support them, and in the 
acts of the various Legislatures accepting the donation. 
The success of these institutions vindicates their cbim 
to liberal support. 

I but state what all know to be true when I assert 
that the agricultural is the paramount interest of this 
country, the basis of all prosperity, and the only origi- 
nal source from which subsistence and clothing come. 
There can be no reason why its votaries should not be as 
well educated as those of any other art or science, and 
there can exist no reason why cultivated intellect should 
not be employed in the discovery and the development 
of the resources of the soil. The I^orth Georgia Agri- 

28 



418 MEN AND THINGS 

cultural College, established by the act of 1862, has 
accomplished more good in the few years of its exist- 
ence than any two schools in the State within the same 
period ; unfortunately its buildings were recently de- 
stroyed by fire. 

To the products of the soil are we mainly indebted 
for the balance of trade in our favor, amounting for the 
last year to $309,309,741. It is the labor employed in 
agriculture and the products of that labor that enable us 
to dispute commercial supremacy with Great Britain. 
This labor is productive in the proportion that it is 
guided by intelligence. 

If experience should show that one-fourth of this 
money could be more usefully employed in other depart- 
ments of education, then it is perfectly competent for 
the Legislatures of the States and Territories so to em- 
ploy it. It is within the control and subject to the di- 
rection of the State and territorial authorities. There 
can therefore, as it seems to me, be no well-founded ob- 
jection to the bill because it gives a part of the money 
to this particular class of institutions. While this is- 
truly a national question, still, regarding it from a local 
and sectional standpoint; in view of the necessities for 
aid to public education in the South, it is important 
to inquire what amount this measure will supply. As- 
suming, as estimated by the Cormnissioner of Educa- 
tion, that the sales will amount annually to $1,500,000, 
the amount that each of the Southern States would re- 
ceive is exhibited in the following table : 

Alabama $101,534.56 

Arkansas 35,347.50 



MEN AND THINGS 419 

Florida 19,034.61 

Georgia 124,221.66 

Kentucky 88,058.19 

Louisiana 73,208.10 

Mississippi 83,056.90 

Missouri 58,960.03 

ITorth Carolina 105,425.63 

South Carolina 76,978.02 

Tennessee 96,679.35 

Texas 58,772.35 

Virginia 118,203.99 

West Virginia 21,602.58 



$1,061,083.47 
It will be seen that the State of Georgia would an- 
nually receive upon this basis $124,221.66, one-fourth 
of which, or $31,055.41, for five years would amount 
to $155,277. This would endow the agricultural col- 
lege, leaving to the cause of popular education in this 
State each year $93,166.25, which amount would vary 
of course with the amount of the sales of the public 
land. We can form some estimate of the aid which this 
bill will render to the education of the people of the 
United States when it is remembered that the public 
domain, surveyed and unsurveyed, amounts to 1,154,- 
471,762 acres. Whether this domain shall be wisely 
and humanely devoted to the education and elevation 
of the masses of the people of this country, distributed 
upon the basis of necessity and equality, or given to 
rich and powerful corporations, and thus increase their 



420 MEN AND THINGS 

means of fixing the price of labor and controlling legis- 
lation, is not a debatable question. 

Mr. Chairman, the first century of our national ex- 
istence vindicates the wisdom that founded our insti- 
tutions and the beneficence that disting-uishes their 
operation. Our career is the wonder and admiration 
of the world. We have extended our domain from a 
narrow strip along the Atlantic coast across a hundred 
degrees of longitude to the Pacific Ocean, increased the 
number of States from thirteen to thirty-eight and our 
population from three millions to fifty millions. We 
have a country that possesses every variety of climate 
and production, soil and scenery. It combines in prod- 
igal profusion every element of individual and national 
wealth. It opens an inviting field to every industrial 
enterprise and bestows the richest rewards upon the 
efforts of labor. It has given to immortality the names 
of Franklin, Fulton, and Morse, and bequeathed to 
mankind the* triumphs of their genius. Its discoveries 
in science and inventions in art have revolutionized the 
industries and commerce of the world. Her iron ships 
float upon every sea and bear to every port the treasures 
of her mines, her fields, and her forests. 

Our skill has unlocked the arcana of nature and util- 
ized her physical forces in constructing the temple of 
freedom, and American genius has brought its trophies 
of sculpture, painting, and poetry to adorn its colunms 
and festoon its arches. American orators have eclipsed 
the famous masters of antiquity. American literature 
has attained a range of thought, a felicity of expression, 
and a purity of sentiment unknown to other ages and 



MEN AND THINGS 421 

countries. We have sent back to the birthplace of civil- 
ization the inspiration of a new national life and 
aroused the East from the slumber of ages. Hoary sys- 
tems are dissolving in the blaze of the star of empire 
that "westward takes its way." Vitalized by contact 
with us, China and Japan have adopted systems of pop- 
ular education abreast with the demands of the age that 
rival the best models of modern times. But while we 
are dazzled with the splendor of these achievements that 
cultivated intellect has done so much to secure, we are 
confronted with the melancholy fact that six millions 
of American children are unable to read and write the 
language in which the historian records and perpetuates 
them. 

If so much has been accomplished in the brief period 
of a century under existing disadvantages, what hopes 
are the least sanguine not authorized to indulge of the 
future grandeur and glory of our common country? 
Each conquest in this aggressive march to national des- 
tiny enlarges the desire and augments the power for new 
and grander results, and each new acquisition imposes 
additional obligations. 

jSText in importance to the obligation to preserve pub- 
lic liberty is the duty of providing the means for popu- 
lar education. These will be the two great agents of 
advancement in the future, as they have been of suc- 
cess in the past. The possibilities' of our future prom- 
ise more than the realization of Utopian dreams. They 
spread out over the vast West a population numbered 
by hundreds of millions, combining the strength of the 
Koman with the culture of the Greek, uniting the chiv- 



4'22 MEN AND THINGS 

airy of Bayard with the benevolence of Howard, and ex- 
hibiting in blended harmony the best elements of the 
Puritan and the Cavalier ; a wilderness reclaimed from 
primeval solitude, yielding to industry harvests that fill 
the marts of the world with commerce and appease the 
hunger of nations with bread ; great national highways 
substituting the dim trail of the receding Indian, mag- 
nificent cities occupying the place of abandoned 
wigwams, and the light of council-fires paling before 
the superior light reflected from galleries of art, halls 
of learning, and temples of worship, realizing the ful- 
fillment of prophetic prediction : 

"The wilderness shall be glad for them, and the desert 
shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." 

This population under the protection of and this 
progress fostered by a Government under a written con- 
stitution, that explicitly defines the powers of the Gov- 
ernment and expressly secures the rights of the people, 
we may here expect to witness the highest physical, so- 
cial, moral, and political development of which the race 
is capable. 

It was during the thousand years of darkness and 
blood, when cloistered monks monopolized the learning 
of Europe and Asia, leaving the masses in ignorance, 
that barbarous conquerors and ambitious prelates fas- 
tened upon the world the despotism of the Feudal sys- 
tem and the horrors of the Inquisition. Against this 
stupendous crime upon humanity its mind, heart, and 
conscience have never ceased to utter their protest. The 
revival of letters and the general diffusion of knowledge 
relaxed the grasp of the tyrant and broke the spell of 



MEN AND THINGS 423 

tyranny ; and cultivated intellect, inspired by patriotism 
at the expense of blood has erected and consecrated upon 
American soil the sacred temple of liberty, rebuilt her 
ruined altars, installed her banished priestess, and re- 
stored the worship of her divinity. And here, under 
the patronage of Republican institutions and universal 
education, liberty finds its freest expression, religion 
its purest model, and humanity its highest type. 



Speech of Hon. Hiram P. Bell, Delivered Before the 
General Assembly of the State of Georgia in Spe- 
cial Joint Session, Dec. 3, 1901. Reported by Mr. 
McAllister. Subject :The Georgia Secession Con- 
vention of 1861. 

Mr. President ; Mr. Speaker ;Gentlemen of the Gen- 
eral Assembly of the State of Georgia ; Ladies and Gen- 
tlemen : — 

I can only wish that I deserved a tithe of the eulo- 
giums which my friend has seen proper to pronounce 
upon me. I am really at a loss to know whether to 
accept it as a tribute of friendship, or as an example of 
the splendid ability of the president to round magnifi- 
cient periods of oratory. 

We live and have lived in a history-making epoch ; 
and we are here to-night to consider the most important, 
certainly the most thrilling event in the history of this 
great commonwealth, — the secession convention of 1861. 
The decade that preceded that convention is crowded 



424 MEN AND THINGS 

with the startling developments of the conflict of opin- 
ion in this country, upon the question of African Sla- 
very. We thought — or the country thought — upon the 
admission of Missouri into the Union in 1821, that 
there would be a respite from the slavery agitation. 
There was comparative rest for a period of nearly thirty 
years. But Southern valor in the field, under the ad- 
ministration of a Democratic president, on the battle- 
fields of Mexico, aided by Southern diplomacy at Guad- 
aloupe, Hidalgo, had won for our common country an 
empire upon the Pacific slope. In 1847, Commodore 
Stockton captured California, in area nearly as large 
as ISTew England, E^ew York and Pennsylvania. A 
military government was organized, a constitutional 
convention was called. That convention framed a con- 
stitution excluding African slavery, which was sub- 
mitted, under military authority, to a conglomeration 
of mongrels, Mexicans and Indians; id et omni genus, 
and with that constitution, thus irregularly and ille- 
gally framed, California applied for admission into 
the sisterhood of States. 

That application was met with an indignant protest 
from the men of the section whose blood and valor had 
wrung the soil from the grasp of a foreign power. It 
kindled their chivalry like flame, and reopened the 
fearful conflict of opinion between the sections of 
our common country. Its solution was found in the 
compromise measure of 1850. The admission of Cal- 
ifornia into the Union, the passage of the Fugitive 
Slave law, the abolition of the slave trade in the District 
of Columbia and the dockyards of the United States, all 



MEN AND THINGS 425 

had their effect, and the fires thus kindled were never 
extinguished. The Southern people met in convention 
in jSTashville under the presidency of a Southern States- 
man, and protested. The people of Georgia assembled 
in convention in 1850, and while they acquiesced ex ne- 
cessitate rei in existing conditions, they entered a vig- 
orous protest, and announced that unless the aggressions 
of the JSTorthern States upon the South ceased, they 
w^ould be resisted to the disruption of every tie which 
bound Georgia to the Union. 

This controversy resulted in a division of the South- 
ern people and the Democratic party into two factions, 
marshalled respectively under the banners of Southern 
Rights and Union, and so complete was that division, 
and so well defined, that in 1852, when the party har- 
monized upon Pierce and King for the presidency and 
vice-presidency, the Democratic party of Georgia ran 
two electoral tickets. And so intense was this factional 
feeling in the sister State of Alabama, that the Demo- 
cratic party of Alabama, although her ablest statesman 
was upon the ticket, nominated the lion-hearted Troup, 
of Georgia, and the chivalric Quitman, of Mississippi, 
for the presidency and vice-presidency. 

Mr. Pierce gave to the country a comparatively con- 
servative administration. In 1854, Stephen A. Doug- 
las, chairman of the committee on Territories in the 
United States Senate, and Alexander H. Stephens, 
•chairman of a similar committee in the House, re- 
ported the now famous and historic "Kansas-i^ebraska" 
bill, the leading feature of which was the recognition 
of what was known as the doctrine of papular sover- 



426 MEN AND THINGS 

eignty. That rekindled the fires of slavery agitation. 
ISTew England piety gathered from the slums of her 
cities her thugs, riff-raff and pluguglies, armed them 
with Sharp's rifles and sent them to the borders of Kan- 
sas to butcher men who had settled and were occupying 
the country. The result of that contest was the bring- 
ing forward of John C. Fremont for the presidency in 
1856, and he failed of an election by a very small ma- 
jority of the popular vote of the country. 

In 1858, the celebrated debates between Stephen A. 
Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, took place in the State 
of Illinois, when they contested the United States sena- 
torship before the people, the issue being the Congres- 
sional exclusion of slavery, maintained by Lincoln, or 
the right of the people to ordain their own government 
and institutions, maintained by Douglas. The result 
was the popular verdict for Lincoln, but the legislative 
triumph of Douglas. That campaign, and his Cooper 
Union speech made Abraham Lincoln president of the 
United States. He was the representative of a purely 
sectional party. 

In the meantime, the Democratic convention for the 
nomination of presidential candidates assembled at 
Charleston. During this agitation there flourished a 
large secret organization of Southern patriots known 
as the Knights of the Golden Circle. A leading and 
distinguished Alabamian advocated the policy of a di- 
vision of the party at Charleston and the defeat of the 
nomination of Douglas, who was the recognized leader 
of the party as to strength if not as to ability, and there 
is now in print extant a letter in which he announced 



MEN AND THINGS 427 

that the policy of the fire-eating element of the South 
was to defeat the nomination of Douglas for the presi- 
dency, divide the party, secure the election for Lincoln, 
and precipitate the Cotton States into revolution. 

The convention was divided. Douglas was within 
a fraction of a vote of receiving the requisite two-thirds. 
One wing of the party nominated Brcckenridge and 
Lane; another nominated Douglas and Johnson. The 
Eepublicans nominated Lincoln and Hamlin. The 
N"ational party nominated Bell and Everett.. These 
parties represented these distinctive political positions 
upon the everlasting slavery question: Breckenridge 
represented the proposition of Congressional protection 
to slavery in the Territories ; Lincoln, the Congressional 
exclusion of slavery from the territories; Douglas pro- 
claimed the inherent popular inalienable right of the 
people of the Territories, as well as elsewhere, to deter- 
mine their own institutions as they might wish. Bell 
represented a platform with ten words: "The Con- 
stitution, the ITnion, and the enforcement of the law." 
That contest was upon those issues. Lincoln won in 
the electoral college by a large majority, but was de- 
feated in the popular vote by over a half million. 
There was no election in Georgia, — T mean no election 
by the people. 

In the autimm of 1860, the Legislature of Georgia 
assembled, the State all ablaze with interest, with ex- 
citement and with apprehension. There were those in 
Georgia who insisted upon the secession of the State 
from the Union by the Legislature. "Wiser counsels 
prevailed, however, and on the 20th of November, 1800, 



428 MEN AND THINGS 

a bill passed the Legislature calling a convention of the 
people of the State of Georgia to consider the gi*a\it7 
of the situation and adopt the line of policy that Geor- 
gia desired to pursue. 

That convention met on the 16th day of January, 
1861. In some counties the distinct issue was made — 
in a few, not a great many. In a great many other 
counties the Southern Rights party had no opposition. 
In many other counties what was known as the Union 
or Co-operation Party had no opposition. In still 
other counties, there was a union of the two parties 
in the selection of candidates. 

That convention met to wrestle with the weightiest 
question that ever oppressed patriot hearts. I shall 
never forget my approach to the capitol on that occa- 
sion. I had never been in Milledgeville. The first view 
I had of the capitol of my own State, after a Presiden- 
tial campaign in which I had made in every county in 
my Congressional district the best Glorious — Union — 
and — Star — Spangled — Banner speeches of which I was 
capable, presented to my gaze a tremendous flag float- 
ing from the capitol building, with a rattlesnake in coil, 
its mouth open — the symbol of the creature that with- 
ered Eden's bloom with the slime of sin. The cold re- 
pulsion upon my heart and my feelings is simply be- 
yond the power of language to express. I had loved the 
glorious old Stars and Stripes, It had sheltered Wash- 
ington and his shivering soldiers in the snows of Valley 
Forge. It was borne by Scott and Harrison at Lundy's 
Lane and the Thames, when British grenadiers that 
fought with Wellington in Spain and won with Wei- 



MEN AND THINGS 429 

ling-ton at "Waterloo, fled. It shadowed the brave De- 
Kalb as he lay bleeding on the smoking plains at Cam- 
den. It was christened in a baptism of the richest blood 
from the heart of Jasper, and had floated in triumph 
from the dome of the capitol of the Aztecs, 

"Flag of the free heart's hope and home, 
By angel hands to valor given. 
Its stars have lit the azure dome. 
And all its hues were born in Heaven." 

I call your attention now to the personnel of the con- 
vention of 1861. It was composed of 296 men repre- 
senting every interest of the State, representing every 
department of industrial endeavor, representing every 
type and class of ability in Georgia. There was a con- 
stellation of Georgia's most brilliant stars at the head 
of that memorable and historic body. Ex-Secretary 
of War George W. Crawford, ex-Governors of Georgia 
Crawford and Johnson, ex-United States Senators 
Toombs and Johnson, ex-Justices of the Supreme Court 
Benning, Xisbet, Stephens and Warner, ex-Congress- 
man Stephens, Toombs, Colquitt, Poe, Bailey, IN'isbet, 
Chastain and Murphy, (Murphy died the day the con- 
vention assembled), and ex-judges of the superior court 
almost innumerable, — Hansell, Tripp, Rice, Reese, Har- 
ris and Fleming ; all men of the highest ability and the 
purest patriotism, who had held the highest offices of the 
Government, save that of President of the United States. 
In addition to these able statesmen, three lawyers were 
in that convention who stood in the very forefront of 
the bar in all the South: Benjamin H. Hill, Thomas 



430 MEN AND THINGS 

R. R. Cobb and Francis S. Bartow. Divinity and 
scholarship were represented by J^athan M. Crawford, 
president of Mercer University, and Alexander Means, 
ex-president of Emory College. The bar, the pulpit, 
the farm, the counter, the doctor-shop, the office — ev- 
erywhere, everybody had the very best specimens of 
the race for representatives in that convention. 

When we met everything was in uncertainty, every- 
thing was in doubt. There has never been a question 
in my mind but that at the time of the election of those 
who were opposed to secession per se, were immensely in 
the majority, l^obody knew what would be done, or 
what could be done, to chain the cyclone. The feeling 
was so intense as to make men stand aghast as they 
looked into the face of their fellows. The very air quiv- 
ered with the intensity of feeling, solicitude and appre- 
hension. The co-operationists called a caucus on the 
evening of the 15th, at which Alexander H. Stephens, 
Linton Stephens, Hiram Warner, and, as I remember, 
Benjamin H. Hill, and my distinguished friend, ex- 
Governor McDaniel, and many others of us, met with 
a view to arranging some sort of a platform upon which 
we could stand, and it was finally arranged that Gov- 
ernor Johnson should prepare a substitute to the prop- 
osition to secede immediately, which he did. 

ISText morning the convention met. Of course, we 
knew not what the other side was doing, except as it 
developed in the infinite shrewdness of their policy. 
When we met, Asbury Hull moved that George W. 
Crawford should be elected president by acclamation. 
The significance of that selection lay in the fact that 



MEN AND THINGS 431 



Hull was the embodiment of conservatism, purity of 
character and the absence of madcap passion. He was 
a type of magnificent, moral, conservative and intel- 
lectual manhood. Of course, the motion was adopted. 
The next proposition was to elect a secretary, and Mus- 
cogee, always in evidence when a good officer is needed, 
came to the front with Albert Lamar, with a blue cock- 
ade in his hat, and he was elected. Then they manoeu- 
vered. These parties skirmished, neither knowing ex- 
actly where the majority would lie. Everybody anx- 
ious, everybody scared — I pledge you my word I was 
completely dazed. I didn't know what would happen. 
I felt like I was standing in the shadow of some great 
event that had been cast before, and nearly everybody 
felt the same way. There was no jubilation, no fim, 
no frolicking, no absence from that convention on free 
passes. Every delegate was in his seat. 

Well, they manoeuvered about in the adoption of 
rules until the ITth. The Commissioner of South Car- 
olina was on hand, and ex-Governor Shorter, of Ala- 
bama, was there also, and at the proper time they were 
invited to address the convention, on the 18th. All was 
going along nicely, and all running in one current. 
When the convention met on the 19th, Mr. Hull moved_ 
to go into secret session, and so soon as the doors were 
closed, one of the finest historical characters that I ever 
knew arose, — small, elegant, ho looked as if he had just 
been withdrawn from a bandbox in his wife's boudoir. 
Cold as a Siberian icicle, clear as a tropical sunbeam, 
pure as the down on a seraph's wing, — such was Eu- 
genius A. Nisbet. I would not trust my memory to 



432 MEN AND THINGS 

quote his language, but this is the resolution which he 
I)resented to the convention: 

''The doors were then closed, and Mr. ISTisbet offered 
the following resolutions, which were taken up and 
read : 'Resolved, that in the opinion of this convention, 
it is the right and duty of Georgia to secede from the 
present Union, and to co-operate with such of the other 
States as have or shall do the same, for the purpose of 
forming a Southern Confederacy upon the basis of the 
Constitution of the United States.' Resolved that a 

committee of be appointed by the chair to report 

an ordinance to assert the right and fulfill the obliga- 
tion of the State of Georgia to secede from the Union." 

History has recorded the consequences that followed 
from that resolution ; and you will be surprised to hear 
that that pure, clear and able man, in about a twenty 
minutes speech, argued in favor of the adoption of that 
resolution, and based his argument solely upon the 
groimd that it was the only way to prevent war ! The 
argument was that if we did not secede we w^ould fight 
among ourselves. There was no sort of idea of any war 
with the United States if we did secede. When he took 
his seat. Governor Johnson arose and presented a very 
remarkable paper, which you will find by reference to 
the Journal of the convention. In the magnificent, 
Macaulay-like style peculiar to him, as faulty in logic 
and as untrue in practicability as a composition of that 
length could well be, it was the best we could do to 
catch in falling. Well, I expected debate like that 
war of the fabled gods, which shook nations and realms 
in its jar. Governor Johnson made perhaps a fifteen or 



MEH AND THINGS 433 

twenty minutes speech, which was an attempt to defend 
his substitute. The truth is, that we were like Atlas, 
crushed by the superincumbent burden of the world. 
The question was too deep, and the consequences too 
great, and those great and glorious orators trembled, 
as I thought then and as I think now. They certainly 
failed to come up to my expectations. 

When he sat down, Thomas R. R. Cobb arose, free 
from passion, earnest, calm, pure, patriotic, and made 
a short speech, taking it for granted that of course w^e^ 
were going to secede, and down he sat. When he took 
his seat Alexander H. Stephens arose, under a high tide 
of excitement. I was associated with him pretty closely 
for four years, but I had never seen him so excited. 
He w'ent on to picture the cost and suffering and sacri- 
fice that the Union involved. He spoke of the benedic- 
tion it had been to the people. He spoke of the glory 
and grandeur that it was destined, imdissolved, to ac- 
complish. "But," said he, "if you ever intend to se- 
cede, the sooner you do so, the better," which was a 
confession of judgment in open court. Mr. Toombs 
then arose, that combination of Cato, Agamemnon and 
Mirabeau, and for about ten minutes, with the skill of 
a master he told of the persecutions in legislation and 
of the aggressions of the itsTorth upon the rights of the 
South. He spoke of the benefactions that they had re- 
ceived from the Government in the way of high protec- 
tive tariffs, in fishing bounties and in the coast trade, 
and he charged upon them the intended destruction of 
the institution of slavery by the election of a sectional 
president pledged to its exclusion by law from the Ter- 



434 MEN AND THINGS 

ritories and its confinement within the then existing 
limits. He closed with this remark: "Mr. President 
and gentlemen, these are facts. South Carolina has 
withdrawn. It remains for you to grasp in fraternity 
the bloody hand of Massachusetts, or align yourselves 
with gallant South Carolina !" That is the only sen- 
tence that ever shcJbk my views upon the question. 
When he concluded Dr. Means arose and made a Star- 
Spangled-Banner speech, such as only he could make. 
Judge Reese, of Madison, made a strong, sturdy little 
talk. Just as the dinner hour approached, and the con- 
vention was about to adjourn, Benjamin H. Hill took 
the floor and by common consent, or as we call it now% 
unanimous consent, he was recognized. He opened 
his speech with, I think, the most thrilling eloquence 
I have ever heard. Said he, "Mr. President and Gen- 
tlemen of the Convention, we now witness the dying 
throes of the grandest government God Almighty ever 
vouchsafed to man. Let us not be in haste to wrap 
around its corpse the winding-sheet." And for thirty or 
forty minutes, with a power of speech, with a thrilling 
eloquence and with a logic characteristic of Benjamin 
H. Hill alone, he addressed that convention; and yet 
that speech, which ordinarily would have stirred multi 
tudes to madness, fell upon that convention like the ar- 
rows aimed at the heart of Priam, — bloodless to the 
ground. Francis S. Bartow, far back in the Represen- 
tative hall, arose, all on fire, and with decided power 
and energy and vim (I like to have said vindictiveness) 
he made a telling speech. So soon as he sat down. Mar- 



.MEN AND THINGS 435 

cellus Douglas arose, pointed at liini and said: ''That 
man is Charles Carrol of Carrollton." 

The vote was taken; ayes 166, noes 130. The ordi- 
nance carrying the resolution into effect was adopted. 
George W. Crawford, the president, announced: ''Gen- 
tlemen of the Convention, I have the pleasure to an- 
nounce that the State of Georgia is free, sovereign and 
independent!" A question arose with some of the Un- 
ion delegates about signing the ordinance, and there 
were some that were disinclined to sign. When, how- 
ever, the convention at length adopted a resolution re- 
questing them to sign, all of them except seven did so. 
Latimer and McRae, of Montgomery, Simmons, of 
Gwinett, Welchel and Byrd, of Hall, and Simmons, of 
Pickens, were those who refused to sign the ordinance, 
but it is due to their memory to state, that whilst they 
signed a protest against its passage, they pledged, like 
our forefathers, their lives, their fortunes and their 
sacred honor for its vindication, William C. Fain, 
of the county of Fannin, refused to sign either the ordi- 
nance, or the protest. He was killed early in the War 
by scouts near his own home. 

I have remarked that a good many hesitated about 
signing the ordinance. W. T. Day, of Jasper, and 
Anderson and Farnsworth, of Murray County, had quite 
a discussion over the question. They thought about it 
all of one night, and the next morning when they arose, 
Farnsworth said to Day: "Day I have been pondering 
this thing over all night, and I have concluded that I 
will sign the ordinance as a witness that the damned 
thing has passed." 



436 MEN AND THINGS 

What followed, my fellow-citizens, is a matter of 
history. The theory of secession was Paradise pro- 
mised; its realization was Hell endured. When that 
Ordinance of Secession was passed, Georgia was worth 
seven hundred millions of taxable property, according 
to the official message of the Governor ; four years from 
that day our heritage was ashes and ruins, ground and 
glory and graves. I am not repining at the result ; 
but it was, and it always will seem strange to me, that 
men of experience, men of statesmanship, men of pa- 
triotism, men of wisdom, could be so immensely mis- 
taken, as to suppose that the spirit which had organized 
a sectional party, elected a sectional president and over- 
thrown and subverted the Constitution which they had 
sworn to support, would let us depart in peace. Seven 
years after this event, free negroes, carpet-baggers, 
bounty- jumpers and Federal army officers were assem- 
bled in this capitol, making a constitution for Georgia; 
not free, but for disfranchised virtue and patriotism. 
I do not blame anybody. I am dealing with historic 
facts. But I can not relieve my mind and my heart of 
the conviction that sometime, somewhere, somebody will 
have to answer for the blood and slaughter of 1861. 
And the years following, we had no government; we 
had no constitution ; we had no army ; we had no navy ; 
we had no commerce; we had no commercial relations 
with the world; and the united judgment of the civil- 
ized world was against lis upon the controlling issue of 
that controversy, — African slavery. And yet, in the 
absence of all this, more statesmanship and more pa- 
triotism were never exhibited, in my judgment, than 



MEN AND THINGS 437 

was by the statesmen of the Confederacy after we got 
into the struggle. The grandest Congressional delega- 
tion, in my opinon, in history, was the delegation of 
Georgia to the Provisional Congress. Think of it! 
Bartow, Crawford, Kennan, Stephens, Toombs, Howell 
Cobb, Thomas K. R. Cobb, Benjamin Harvey Hill and 
Augustus R. Wright! The trouble was that the world 
was against us ! The grandest army that ever trod the 
planet was the Confederate Army. It grasped the 
sparkling gem of victory from the cannon's smoking 
mouth, on a hundred bloody fields, and spangled the 
milky way of glory with its gorgeous jewelry of stars ! 
On the 28th day of January the convention ap- 
pointed to the several Southern States the following 
commissioners, charged with the duty of presenting to 
the officers of said States, the Ordinance of Secession 
with the reasons which induced its adoption. The com- 
missioners were for Virginia, Henry L. Benning ; Mary- 
land, Ambrose R, Wright; Kentucky, Henry R. Jack- 
son; Tennessee, Hiram P. Bell; Missouri, Luther J. 
Glenn ; Arkansas, D, P. Hill ; Delaware, D. C. Camp- 
bell; I^orth Carolina, Samuel Hall; Texas, J. W. A. 
Sanford. After the passage of various ordinances to 
adjust the relation of the State to the new condition, the 
convention took a recess, to meet at Savannah upon the 
call of the president, in obedience to which it reassem- 
bled in the city of Savannah, March 7, ISGl. On the 
15th of March the permanent Constitution of the Con- 
federate States of America adopted by the Provisional 
Congi'ess at Montgomery was presented by the president 



438 ME2J AND THINGS 

of the convention. On the day following, on motion of 
Alexander H. Stephens, the Constitution was unani- 
mously ratified. 

On the 23rd of March the convention adopted and 
submitted to the qualified voters of the State for rati- 
fication, the State Constitution, which was duly rati- 
fied on the first Tuesday in March, 1861. 

The convention adjourned sine die March 23, 1861. 
Thus the issue made up betAveen the ISTorthern and 
Southern sections of a once common Union was submit- 
ted to the determination of the sword, the ultima ratio 
regum. 

I have spoken of a past event. I know now of but 
eight solitary survivors of all those who participated in 
that event. I am delighted to see my distinguished 
friend, ex-Governor McDaniel present. He is one. 
Augustus H. Hansell, of Thomasville, Jefferson Jen- 
nings, of Jackson, Henry R. Harris, of Meriwether, 
William T. Day, of Pickens, William A. Teasley, of 
Cherokee, L. H. O. Martin, of Elbert, and your speaker 
of this evening is the eighth. 

Oh, how time flies ; and how these reminiscences of 
past mistakes and troubles and sorrows should incite 
us to the faithful discharge of patriotic duty while our 
short probation exists. 

I thank you, gentlemen of the General Assembly 
and Ladies and Gentlemen, for the kind attention that 
you have given me. 



MEN AND THINGS 439 

Memorial Address of Mr, Bell^ of Georgia^ on the 
Life and Character of Julian Hartridge. 

]\[r. Speaker : The whole country received the an- 
nouncement that Julian Hartridge was dead, with con- 
sternation and sorrow. The people of Greorgia have en- 
shrined his memory in their hearts and placed upon his 
bier their immortelles, dripping with tlie tears of their 
anguish. The summons came to him in the vigor of 
his manhood and the full maturity of his powers, and 
closed a useful and brilliant career with scarcely a note 
of warning. We are prepared for the demise of the 
aged and infirm, and we watch the flickering of life's 
lamp in them with emotions similar to those with which 
we look upon the mellow glow of sunset. The grave 
then loses something of its terrors as we contemplate it 
as the resting-place of a weary pilgrimage. Ignoring 
the sad truth that humanity is subjected to the univer- 
sal law of suffering and death, we assign to life's dura- 
tion the limit which age alone prescribes. We seem to 
forget that — 

Leaves have their time to fall. 
And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath, 

And stars to set; — ^but all, 
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O death ! 

Death palsies the arm of the warrior, and he drops 
from his nerveless grasp the shattered spear. It stills 
the tongue of the orator, and the senate and the forum 
are silent. It severs the chord in the tide of song, and 
the harp of the minstrel hangs upon the willow. It 



440 MEN AND THINGS 

drinks from the blushes of beauty the mingled hues of 
the rose and lily, and the reptiles of the grave banquet 
upon the lips our love has pressed. Every age and 
every clime is monumental with its symbols and strewn 
with the trophies of its conquests. 

And still we are startled when its victim is selected 
from the strong, suddenly stricken down in the full- 
orbed splendor of manhood's high meridian, leaving 
exalted position vacant, and forever blighting the prom- 
ise of future honor and usefulness to country and 
kind. The estimation in which the lamented Hart- 
ridge was held by the people of his native State is 
shown by the honors conferred upon him living, and 
the grief with which they mourn him dead. He was 
born in the city of Savannah, and spent the gambols of 
his childhood and won the triumphs of his manhood in 
that beautiful city that keeps vigil like a weeping vestal 
over the repose of his ashes. 

Julian Hartridge commenced his education in the 
schools of his native State and completed it at Brown 
University in Rhode Island, graduating with high dis- 
tinction. He selected the law as his profession and 
for a period attended the law school at Cambridge, Mas- 
sachusetts. Soon after his admission to the bar the 
people of his country, always distinguished for their 
wisdom in selecting their ablest men for oflBcial trusts, 
returned him to the Legislature, in which, at a bound, 
he placed himself in the front rank of the wise men 
of the State as an eloquent speaker, ready debater, and 
practical legislator. He was a delegate to the historic 
national Democratic convention that met in Charleston 



MEN AND THINGS 441 

in 1860. Returned to the Confederate Congress in 
1861, he was re-elected in 1863 and served as a member 
of that body during the existence of the Confederacy. 

He was chosen chairman of the executive committee 
of the Democratic party of the State of Georgia in 
1871, delegate for the State at large to the national 
Democratic convention in 1872, an elector for the State 
at large on the Greeley and Brown ticket in the presi- 
dential campaign. He was elected a representative 
from the first district of Georgia to the Forty-fourth 
Congress and re-elected to the Forty-fifth, of which he 
was an honored and useful member at the time of his 
death. He was always fully equal to the emergency 
surrounding him, discharging the duties of every offi- 
cial position to which he was called to the gratification 
of his friends and the admiration of his enemies. He 
recognized in the law a jealous mistress, and paid 
chivalric court to her shrine. He entered the lists for 
professional trial and professional triumph with a bar 
illustrated with the learning and adorned with the vir- 
tues of Berrien, Charlton, and Law, and soon the lance 
of the youthful knight was gleaming at its head. He 
was elected by the Legislature solicitor-general of the 
eastern judicial circuit, and the certainty with which 
criminals were convicted and crime punished attested 
the ability and fidelity with which he met the obliga- 
tions and discharged the duties of that responsible of- 
fice. 

His thorough culture, his sense of justico, his love of 
right, and his powers of analysis eminently fitted him 
for success at the bar. His statements of the questions 



442 ME Is! AND THINGS 

• 

of law in his case had the clearness and force of argu- 
ment, and his representation of the facts the merit of 
fairness and candor. Eepudiating mere dicta as au- 
thority, he venerated the precedents established by the 
great lights of the law based upon authority and sus- 
tained by reason. He seized with promptness the con- 
trolling points of his case and fortified them with au- 
thority until his position w^as impregnable, and then 
assailed his adversary in his weak points by harrassing 
sorties from his chosen stronghold. His position thus 
taken and his authorities arranged, he brought to his 
argument the aid of a style of singular vigor and per- 
spicuity. He aroused the indignation of juries against 
wrong with blistering invective and won them to his 
cause and his client with the appeals of melting pathos. 
He added to a handsome person the accomplishment 
of graceful action and the power of a charming voice. 
His elocution was faultless; you could neither add nor 
reject a word without marring its beauty or impairing 
its harmony. The sentences were so constructed as to 
evolve the exact thought with the greatest possible force, 
and to flow in ''Pierian streams, transparent, cool, 
and sweet." Tlie multitude hung like the bees of Hv- 
bla upon his lips to catch the sweetness his eloquence 
distilled. His mind, trained in the disputations of the 
forum, in intellectual gladiatorship with lawyers of the 
highest order of ability, who came together like electric 
clouds, flashing as they met, acquired wonderful powers 
of activity and concentration; and these po^vers, mar- 
shaled by him for the ascertainment and defense of 
truth, were wielded with the skill of a master. 



ME1<! AND THINGS 443 



The truth was his guiding star in all his investiga- 
tions. He sought it by the nearest ways and plainest 
methods that earnest inquiry and thorough research 
could discover. His resources of learning supplied him 
with rich stores of classical illustration which were used 
not to embellish, but to intensify his logic. Criminal 
prosecutions involving the death penalty fully devel- 
oped his transcendent powers of advocacy. The an- 
nouncement that Hartridge would address the jury in 
a murder case was the signal for an admiring multitude 
to crowd the court-room. The reports of the Supreme 
Court of Georgia contain the evidence of his research, 
and learning as a jurist. He was averse to the irksome 
drudgery of routine labor, but delighted in the investi- 
gation and solution of new and difficult problems of law 
and political economy. Brave as Caesar, he was 
modest as a maiden. He had an exalted conception of 
the amenities and proprieties of life in its private, pro- 
fessional, and public relations. 

He seldom spoke in the House of Representatives, 
his sensitive nature revolting at the struggle for the 
floor w^hich frequently characterizes its proceedings, 
and his modesty recoiling at the thought of thrusting 
a speech on unwilling auditors; but when he did speak 
he always confined himself to the question, enlightened 
the House, and commanded its attention. His speech 
on the electoral commission, and the one delivered at 
the last session on the bill to prevent the introduction 
into the United States of contagious and infectious dis- 
eases, are fine models of parliamentary eloquence. The 
world is unwilling to concede excellence in more than 



444 MEN AND THINGS 

one department of intellectual superiority, but his pro- 
fessional brethren who knew him best have accorded 
to him rare powers of advocacy and great learning as 
a jurist, and by common consent have assigned him his 
position at their head. 

Of his statesmanship it is scarcely necessary to speak 
in this presence; decided in his convictions, ardent in 
his patriotism, comprehensive in his views, and in- 
tensely devoted to the Constitution of his country, he 
was a model representative of an intelligent and pa- 
triotic constituency. To appreciate the social qualities 
of Julian Hartridge it was necessary to know him inti- 
mately. Beneath an apparently cold exterior was con- 
cealed an affluence of genial nature, warm frienship, 
and tender sensibility. At his desk during the last 
session of Congress, he grasped my hand warmly, and 
in the absence of any suggestion leading or referring to 
the subject, with evident emotion said : 

"I am regarded as cold, distant, and proud, but no 
man has ever been so misunderstood ; there never was a 
greater mistake. There never was a warmer heart than 
mine. The truth is, it arises from a defect in my vis- 
ion. I am near-sighted, and can not recognize my dear- 
est friends at any distance from me. I would give the 
world if it were otherwise." 

Although I had been acquainted with him for twenty 
years, I never knew nor appreciated him until that mo- 
ment. It developed in him the possession of a large en- 
dowment of these rare and high qualities which consti- 
tute the charm of social life, beautifully and compre- 
hensively called — 



MEH AND THINGS 445 

The softer green of the soul. 

His countrymen have twined for his memory the 
wreath of hiiirel and cypress — the insignia of their 
pride and the symbol of their sorrow ; and his friends 
have dropped upon his new-made grave friendship's 
last offering, the tribute of their tears. 

But strew his ashes to the wind 

Whose sword or voice has served mankind — 

And is he dead, whose glorious mind 

Lifts thine on high ? 
To live in hearts we leave behind. 

Is not to die. 

In the death of my late colleague the Kepublic has 
lost a patriotic citizen and a wise statesman, the profes- 
sion an eloquent advocate and a learned jurist, society a 
courtly gentleman and a brilliant ornament, and his 
family a devoted husband and affectionate father. All 
that is left to them of Julian Hartridge is the heritage 
of his wisdom, the light of his example, and the mem- 
ory of his virtues. Time will mitigate our grief, and 
in the rush and w^hirl of busy life other thoughts will 
engage our attention, but there is a sad home in the 
sunny South within whose broken circle there are bleed- 
ing hearts for the healing of which earth has no balm. 

For time makes all but true love old; 
The burning thoughts that then w^ero told 
Run molten still in memory's mold, 



446 MEN AND THINGS 

And will not cool 
Until the heart itself be cold 
In Lethe's pool. 

The influence of wealth, the resources of learning, 
and the authority of power, all stand dumb and helpless 
in the presence of death. It is the solution of all the 
rivalries, struggles, and achievements of time. Sur- 
rounded with blighted hopes and funeral trains, the 
broken heart of humanity through all time has pressed 
the question of the suffering patriarch of Uz, "If a man 
die shall he live again ?" The quivering spirit whose 
insatiable thirst for immortality attests the divinity of 
its origin and the duration of its destiny, kindles with 
joy as it catches the response from the rejected iSTaza- 
rene at Bethany, "I am the resurrection and the life ; 
he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall 
he live." 

Poor wanderers of a stormy day. 

From place to place we're driven, 
And fancy's flash and reason's ray 
Serve but to light the troubled way, — 
There's nothing true but Heaven. 

And false the light on glory's plume. 

As fading hues of even. 
And love and joy and beauty's bloom 
Are blossoms gathered for the tomb, — 
There's nothing lives but heaven. 



MEN AND THINGS 447 

Stonewall Jackson. 

(The following was written for a school boy's decla- 
mation.) 

It has been said that a great man is the gift of a 
century. Stonewall Jackson stands alone in the nine- 
teenth century in the isolated gTandeur of his great- 
ness. Indeed, the student of the annals of his race will 
look in vain, along the lists of illustrious names that 
genius has apotheosized among the demi-gods of his- 
tory, for his peer. It was the exultation of Pompey 
the Great, that an army would rise at the stamp of his 
foot, yet he fled from the disaster of Pharsalia and fell 
at the hands of an assassin. The eagles of Ca?sar 
flashed the triumph of Kome over a hemisphere, yet he 
fell the victim of treason leaving a name the synonym 
of conquest and' ambition. Hannibal disputed for 
years the power of Home, but the stars of Carthage- 
nian glory went down in blood and her great chieftain 
died in exile. Europe trembled, thrones crumbled and 
kings fled at the advancing footsteps of the ^lan of Des- 
tiny ; but the fate of Waterloo bound Xapoleon, like 
Prometheus to the rock, the prey of Bourbon vultures. 
But the living light ofvictoryblazed upon Jackson's peer- 
less banner, on every field. The invincible legions un- 
der his leadership charged the enemy's batteries with 
the tread of fate and the sanction of ?. God. He grasped 
at the "cannons smoking mouth," the burning palm of 
victory and mingled its light with the stars tliar spark- 
led upon his country's banner. "His was the hero's 



448 MEN AND THINGS 

soul of fire — and 

His the martyr's deathless name, 
And his love was exalted higher 
By all the glow of chivalry." 

The Goddess of Liberty touched his heart with a ves- 
tal spark from her altar, and he sprang, like Minerva 
from the brain of Jupiter upon the plains of Manassas, 
and valor sealed to him in a baptism of blood on his first 
field the enduring name of Stonewall. She festooned 
his brow with the laurels of triumph and he hung them 
in garlands of faith, upon the cross of Calvary. Some 
conquerors have been stimulated to great achievements 
by the love of glory ; others by the thirst for power, but 
the sentiment that nerved the arm, absorbed the thought 
and thrilled the heart of Jackson, was love of country. 

"Breathes there a man with soul so dead. Who never 
to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land." 
The heraldic insignia that emblazoned the shield of 
Jackson is not alone stamped with the blood of revolu- 
tionary conflict. Virtue intertwined with the laurel 
with which she wreathed his brow, the evergTcen of 
immortality, the sublime symbol of the Christian's 
hope and faith, and the hero that wrested victory from 
the enemy's standard, cast it, as the trophy, at the feet 
of the Divinity his soul adored. There was no niche 
for the God of Ambition in the temple in which he 
worshipped. He poured upon his country's shrine from 
a spotless heart, liberty's last libation, with the profu- 
sion of a Prince and the adoration of a Priest. 

This luminary was extinguished in the blaze of vie- 



MEN AND THINGS 449 

torj his valor had won, and by a mysterious Provi- 
dence, he fell at the hands of his own comrades, and 
with him expired the cause, vindicated by his sword, 
illustrated by his patriotism and consecrated in his 
blood. The grief of ten millions of stricken hearts 
wailed his funeral dirge. 

"Bury me," said the dying hero, "at Lexington in 
the valley of Virginia," and his redeemed spirit crossed 
"over the river to rest under the shade of the trees." 
His ashes repose in the bosom of the Old Dominion with 
those of Washington and Jefierson and Madison and 
Henry and their compatriots of revolutionary fame. 
And Virginia pours the tribute of her tears upon her 
hero's grave. 

"Such graves as his are pilgrim's shrines, 
Shrines to no creed or code confined. 
The Delphian vales, the Palestines, 
The Meccas of the mind." 



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